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Book 


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PRESENTED HV 



Schwenckfeld's Participation m 

the Euchanstic Controversy 

of the Sixteenth 

Century 




BY 

FREDERICK WILLIAM LOETSCHER 



A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty 

of Princeton University for 

the Degree of Doctor 

of Philosophy 



PHILADELPHIA : 

MacCALLA & COMPANY 

1906 



SchwenckfelcTs Participation in 

the Eucharistic Controversy 

of the Sixteenth 

Century 




BY 

FREDERICK WILLIAM LOETSCHER 



A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty 

of Princeton University for 

the Degree of Doctor 

of Philosophy 



PHILADELPHIA : 

MacCALLA & COMPANY 

1906 






16 f 



£ 



PREFACE. 

The dissenters of the Reformation in Germany, no less than in 
the other countries of Europe, had to wait a long time before the 
first attempts were made to accord them anything like a fair or 
adequate historical treatment. The political or secular historian 
lacked the desire and the fitness to do justice to the numerous 
religious sects in that age of bitter theological controversies, while 
at least the earliest of modern ecclesiastical historians betrayed a 
narrow confessional interest which was not only blind to many a 
virtue in the nobler heretics, but also quite incapable of estimating 
the salutary influence of some of the heresies themselves. It was 
not till the middle of the last century, therefore, that the first 
really meritorious efforts were made to study the so-called fanatics 
and sectarians of this period with the sober spirit of scientific 
investigation. 

It is especially to be regretted that so little attention had been 
paid to the life and work of Caspar Schwenckfeld. To be sure, 
Arnold in his Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie and Salig 
in his Historie der Aug spur gischen Confession had succeeded to 
some extent in securing a more correct estimate of the much mis- 
understood reformer. But it still remains true, that when we regard 
his strong and beautiful character, his native ability and his ac- 
quired powers, the amount as well as the originality and sugges- 
tiveness of his literary output, the extent of his intercourse with 
the leading spirits of his age and his influence upon them, or the 
nature of his achievement as a polemic theologian and the founder 
of a sect which, though small, has added to the lustre of his name, 
we cannot but feel that here is ' 'a man who, in spite of his eminent 
significance for the history of the Reformation, has not as yet met 
with a proper appreciation."* 

The following dissertation, which is substantially a reprint from 
The Princeton Theological Review of this year,t endeavors to set 
forth Schwenckfeld's peculiar theory of the eucharist as related 
both to the teachings of his opponents and to his own system of 
theological speculations. 

* Gerbert, Geschichte der Strassburger Secteribewegung zur Zeit der Reformation, 
1889, p. 132. 

t See the July and October numbers of the Review, pp. 352-386, 454-500. 

iii 



IV 

The difficulties of the task are due chiefly to the character of 
Schwenckfcld's works. His most important treatises, no less than 
his letters, are purely occasional writings, composed, at least in 
some instances, with incredible speed. The style is loose, repeti- 
tious, often Luther-like in its bold and energetic one-sidednesses, 
unconventional and inconsistent in theological terminology, and 
therefore often strangely confusing alike to his contemporaries and 
to modern interpreters, the uncertainty of the language being only 
increased by the desire of this deeply spiritual reformer to express 
his thoughts and feelings as much as possible in the very words of 
Scripture. Profoundly interested in the religious questions of the 
day, but never overcoming the layman's lack of training in theo- 
logical science, he never, it must be confessed, succeeded, in spite 
of his undoubted dialectic gifts and his extensive acquaintance . 
with the Bible and the greatest of the Church fathers, in bringing 
all the elements of his thought into a perfectly harmonious system. 

These considerations, and above all his spiritualistic tendency, 
which in large part explains these phenomena, will serve as an 
apology, if one were needed, for the somewhat numerous quotations 
from the sources : a mystic must be allowed to speak his own dialect. 
It is at least hoped that these citations, selected from the great 
mass of possible references, are such characteristic utterances that 
they can fairly be regarded as furnishing an accurate and complete 
conception of Schwenckfeld's theory of the Supper. 

I take this opportunity of acknowledging my indebtedness to 
Charles S. Thayer, Ph.D., Librarian of Hartford Theological Semi- 
nary, for the loan of some of the sources, and especially to Prof. 
H. W. Kriebel, author of The Schwenckfelders in Pennsylvania, 
who kindly placed at my disposal his valuable collection of 
Schwenckfeldiana. Helpful suggestions concerning the treatment of 
the theme were received from the Rev. C. D. Hartranft, D.D., the 
editor-in-chief of the Corpus Schwenchfeldianorum, now appearing, 
as well as from Dr. Joh. Ficker, Professor of Church History at 
Strassburg in Alsace. 

Princeton, N. J., F. W. L. 

October, 1906. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

I. SOURCES. 

Sehwenckfeld's works have never been published in full. Four folio volumes 
appearing shortly after his death contain his most important literary remains. 
They bear the following titles: 

(A) Epistolar Des Edlen von Gott hochbegnadeten theuwren Manns' Caspar 

Schioenckfeldts von Ossing, seliger geduchtnis, Christliche Lchrhaffte Missiven 
odcr Sendbrieff, die er in zeit seines Lebens vom XXV. Jare bis auff das LV . 

geschrieben, etc., etc. Der erste Theil. 1566. Pp. XXVII, 

880. Referred to in the text by the symbol A. 

(B) Epistolar des Edlen von Gott hochbegnadeten Herren Caspar Schwenckfelds von 

Ossing, Christliche leerhaffle Sendbrieffe und schrifftcn die 

er in Zeit seines lebens vom XXV . Jare an biss auff das LXI 

geschrieben, etc. Der ander Theil, in vier Bucher underscheiden. 1570, 
pp. 146 and 678. 

This therefore is the first of the four books that were to have contained his 
correspondence in regard to the four great parties in the Church of his day, the 
Romanists, the Lutherans, the Zwinglians, and the Anabaptists. But the third 
and fourth volumes never appeared. The pages of this volume bear the caption, 
Sendbrieff von der Bepstischcn Leere und Glauben. Cited as B. 

(C) Das zweite Buch des andern theils des Epistolars. Darinn Herren Caspar 

Schioenckfeldts Sendbrieffe begriffen, die er auf der Lutherischen Glauben, 
Leere, Sacrament und Kirchen, zum theil an Lutherische, zum theil sonst an 
gutherzige Pcrsonen geschrieben. 1570. Pp. 1022. Cited as C. 

(D) Der Erste Theil Der Christlichen Orthodoxischen Bucher und schrifften des 

Edlen, theuren. . . . Caspar Schwenckfeldts vom Hauss Oss&ig, etc., etc. 
1564. Pp. 974. The other parts of this series never appeared. Cited 
as D. 

There are numerous smaller volumes containing additional treatises "and letters, 
as well as later editions of some of the works collected in the four folio volumes. 
Of those to which I have had access the following writings, nearly all of 
wliich are printed with other works, are the most important bearing upon the 
subject in question: 

Von der Speise des Ewigen Lebens. 1547. 

Ein Schone und Herrliche Ausslegung ober das gantze sechste Kapitel Johannis, 
von der Speise des Ewigen Lebens. 1595, but written in 1550. 

Von den Wercken Christi und Wie die Evangelia nach dem geistlichen Sinn recht 
verstanden sollen werden. Item, Vom ampt des H. Geistes in der christlichen 
Kirchenn. 

Ein Christlich Bedenken, Ob Judas unnd die unglaubigen falschen Christen den leib 
und das blut Jesu Christe im Nachtmal des Herren empfangen, oder auch 
noch heute empfahen oder niessen mogen. 

Antzaigung Zwayer Artickeln warumb dess Luthers Discipel fiirnemlich Herrn Cas- 
par Schwenckfelden und die Mitbekenner der glorien und rainen Leere dess 
Euangelii Christi hassen, verfolgen, und fdlschlich beschrayen. 

v 



VI 

Von der Gantzheit Christi, beede im Leiden und im seiner Herrlichkeit. 1593. 

Ausslegung dess Euangelii Marci VIII. 1547. 

Ausslegung dess Euangelii Luce XIIII. 1547. 

Verantwortung und Defension fur Casparn Schwenckfelden deren puncten unnd 

Irrthumbe damit ihn Doctor Joachim von Wat . . . unrecht beschuldigt. 

1542. 16mo, pp. 129. 
Apologia: dass ist Verantwortung filr Herrn Caspar Schwenckfelden und grundtliche 

Erklerung, dass er die Menschait Christi gar kains Wegs verlaucknet. 16mo, 

pp. LXXXVII. (By some follower of Schwenckfeld.) 
Ableinung D. Luthers Malediction, so erst durch Flacium Illyricum wider mich im 

truck ist publiciert worden. Item, Vom rcchten grund und vcrstande dess II. 

Sacraments des Herrn Nachtmals. 1555. 
Apologia und Erclerung der Schlesier das sy den leyb und blut' Christi im Nachlmal 

dess Herrn und im gehaimnuss dess hailigen Sacraments nit verleugnen. 

1529. (With other treatises.) 
Ableynung und verantwortung der fiinfftzig Lilgen oder Calumnien Flacii Illyrici, 

so er felschlich auss meincn Buchern gezogen, filngst in Truck hat lassen 

aussgehen. 1550. 
Auffdeckhung des letsten schmach und grawliche Liigenbuchs so der grosse feind 

Jhesu Christi des eynigen lebendigen Worts Gottes Flacius Illyricus Anno 

1557 wider Herrn Casp. Schwenckfelden in Truck gegeben hat. 1558. (By 

a follower.) 

The less important works are cited in the appropriate places. As secondary 
sources the works of the leading reformers who came into contact with 
Schwenckfeld are to be consulted, especially those of Luther, Zwingli, and 
Melanchthon. 

II. LITERATURE. 

The oldest literature on Schwenckfeld, much of which is not readily accessible 
in this country, is given with considerable fullness by Hoffmann in the work cited 
in the following list. These works are partly biographical and partly doctrinal. 

Arnold, Gottfried: Unpartheyische Kirchen-und Ketzerhistorie. Schaffhausen, 
1740. Bd. I, Th. II, Buch XVI, c. XX, and Anhang, pp. 1246-1299. 

Barclay, Robert: The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Common- 
wealth. London, 1879. 

Baur, August: Zwinglis Theologie, Ihr Werdenundlhr System. Halle. Vol. 
II, 1889. 

Baur, F. C: Die christliche Lehre von der Versohnung in ihrer geschichtlichen 
Entwicklung . Tubingen, 1838. 

Die christlich Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit und Menschwerdung Gottes in ihrer 

geschichtlichen Entwicklung. Tubingen, 1841-1843. 

Zur Geschichte der protestantischen Mystik, in Theologische Jahrbiicher, 

1848, pp. 502-528. 

Dollinger, J. : Die Reformation, ihre innere Entwicklung und Hire Wirkungen im 
Umfange des Lutherischen Bekenntnisses. Vol. I, Arnheim, 1853, pp. 
236-280. 

Dorner, J. A.: Entwicklung sgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi. Zweiter 
Theil. Berlin, 1853. Pp. 624-636. 

Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie, besonders in Deutschland. Miinchen, 

1867. Pp. 176-182. 

Erbkam, H. W.: Geschichte der protestantischen Sekten im Zeitalter der Reforma- 
tion. Hamburg und Gotha, 1848. Pp. 357-475. 

Article, s. v., in Realencyklopadie fur protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 

Second Edition, Vol. XIII, 776 sqq. 



Vll 

Erdmann: Article, s. v., in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 

403-412. 
Erlduterung fur Herrn Caspar Schwenckfeld, und die Zugethanen seiner Lehre. 

Sumnytaun, 1830. Composed and revised by Pennsylvania Schwenck- 

felders. 
Gerbert, C. : Geschichte der Strassburger Sectenbewegung zur Zeil der Reformation 

(1524-1534). Strassburg, 1889. 
Goetz, Karl G.: Die Abendmahlsfrage in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung. 

Ein Versuch ihrer Losung. Leipzig, 1904. 
Grunhagen, C: Geschichte Schlesiens. Vol. II, Gotha, 1886. 
Hagen, Karl: Deutschlands literarische und religiose Verhaltnisse im Reforma- 

tionszeitalter. Vol. Ill, Frankfurt a. M., 1868. 
Hahn, G. L.: Schwenckfeldii Sententia de Christi Persona et Opere exposita. 

Vratislaviae, 1847. 
Hampe, O.: Zur Biographie Kaspars v. Schwenckfeld. Jauer, 1882. (Prog., 

pp. 20.) 
Hartranft, C. D.: Article, s. v., in S. M. Jackson's Concise Dictionary of Re- 
ligious Knowledge and Gazetteer. New York, 1891. 
Hegler, Alfred: Geist und Schrift bei Sebastian Franck. Eine Studie zur 

Geschichte des Spiritualismus in der Reformationszeit. Freiburg i. B., 1892. 
Heyd: Blaurer, Schnepf, Schwenckfeld; in Tubinger Zeitschrift fur Theologie, 

1838, No. 4, pp. 26-48, for Schwenckfeld. 
Hoffmann, Franz: Caspar Schwenckfelds Leben und Lehren. Erster Theil. 

Berlin, 1897. (Prog., pp. 29.) 
Kadelbach, Oswald : Ausfuhrliche Geschichte Kaspar v. Schwenkfelds und 

der Schwenkfelder in Schlesien, der Ober-Lausitz und Amerika, nebst ihren 

Glaubensschriften von 1524-1860. Lauban, 1860. Pp. 254. 
Keim, Theodor: Reformationsblatter der Reichsstadt Esslingen. Esslingen, 1860. 

Die Reformation der Reichsstadt Vim. Stuttgart, 1851. 

Kriebel, H. W.: The Schwenckfelders in Pennsylvania. Lancaster, Pa., 1904. 

(Chapter I.) 
Noack, Ludwig : Die christliche Mystik nach ihrem geschichtlichen Entwicklungs- 

gange im Mittelalter und hi der neuern Zeit. Zweiter Theil. Konigsberg, 

1853. Pp. 42-60. 
Planck, G. J.: Geschichte der Entstehung, der Veranderungen und der Bildung 

unseres protestantischen Lehrbegriffs. Fiinften Bandes erster Theil. 

Leipzig, 1798. Pp. 75-250. 
Rosenberg, Abraham G.: Schlesische Reformationsgeschichte. Breslau, 1767. 
Schenkel, Daniel : Das Wesen des Prolestantismus aus den Quellen des Reforma- 

tionszeitalters dargestellt. Vols. I— III. Schaffhausen, 1846-51. 
Salig, C. A.: Vollstdndige Historie der Aug spur gischen Confession und derselben 

Apologie. Halle, 1730. 
Schneider, A. F, H.: Ueber den geschichtlichen Verlauf der Reformation in Lieg- 

nitz. Abtheilung I. Berlin, 1860. Pp. 39. 
Schneider, Daniel: Unpartheyische Prufung des Caspar Schwengfelds und 

Grundliche Vertheydigung der Augspiirgischen Confession. Giessen, 1708. 
Schultz, Christoph: Compendium, das ist kurze Zusammenfassung und Inbegriff 

der Christlichen Glaubens-Lehren, 1783. Philadelphia, 1836. 
Schnurrer, Christian F.: Erlauterungen der Wiirtember gischen Kirchen-Refor- 

mations- und Gelehrten-Geschichte. Tubingen, 1798. 
Soffner, Johannes: Geschichte der Reformation in Schlesien. Breslau, 1887. 
Walch, Johann Georg : Historische und Theologische Einleitung in die Re- 

ligions-Streitigkeiten, welche sonderlich ausser der Evangelisch-Lutherischen 

Kirchc entstanden. Vierter und fiinfter Thiel. Jena, 1736. Pp. 1004-1024. 



V11I 

Weiser, C. Z.: Casper Schwenkfeld and the Schwenkfeldians , in The Mercersburg 
Review, July, 1870. 

Brief accounts of Schwenckfeld and of his doctrines may be found in the 
Church Histories of Kurtz, Herzog, Henke-Gass, Mosheim, and especially 
Neidner, Gieseler and Moeller-Kawerau. 

On the Eucharistic Controversy in general, see, besides the Doctrine Histories 
of Harnack, Loofs, Seeberg, and Hagenbach, the following: 

Ebrard, August: Das Dogma vom heiligen Abendmahl und seine Geschichte. 
Vol. II, 1846. 

Hodge, Charles: Princeton Review, April, 1848. 

Nevin, J. W. : Mercersburg Review, 1850. 

Kahnis, Karl F. A.: Die Lehre vom Abendmahl. Leipzig, 1851. 

Dieckhoff, A. W.: Die evangelische Abendmahlslehre im Reformationszeitalter 
geschichtlich dargestellt. Vol. I. Gottingen, 1854. 

Muller, Julius : Vergleichung der Lehren Luthers und Calvins vom heiligen 
Abendmahl, in Dogmatische Abhandlungen, pp. 404ff. Bremen, 1870. 

Krauth, Charles P.: The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology. Phila- 
delphia, 1872. 

Schmid, Heinrich: Der Kampf der lutherischen Kirclie um Luthers Lehre vom 
Abendmahl, im Reformationszeitalter. Leipzig, 1873. 

Van Dyke, Henry J.: The Presbyterian Review, 1887, pp. 193ff., 472ff. 

Richard, J. W.: Bibliotheca Sacra, October, 1887, and January, 1888. 



SCHWENCKFELD'S PAETICIPATION IN THE 

EUCHAK1STIC CONTROVERSY OF THE 

SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

rT^HE eucharistic controversies of the Reformation, like the 
JL related Christological controversies of the ancient Church, 
present, on the whole, a disheartening picture; one in which the 
harsh uncharitableness, not to say the violent hatred, among 
brethren professing devotion to a common Lord is too seldom 
relieved by examples of heroic fidelity to religious convictions, com- 
bined with the conciliatory spirit of Christian love. In each case 
the conflict was followed by momentous and in part disastrous 
consequences in the spheres both of constructive theologizing and 
of ecclesiastical and political life. In each case, however, the issues 
involved must be said, when their full significance is realized, to 
have been worth the arduous attempt made to settle them. 

The Lord's Supper had, of course, been an important subject of 
controversy in the Middle Ages.* But it was reserved for the 
evangelical spirit of the sixteenth century not only to undermine 
the dogma of transubstantiation sanctioned by the Fourth Lateran 
Council of 1215, but also to bring into clearer prominence many a 
hitherto neglected factor of the problem concerning the sacra- 
mental feast. The issue was far from being merely liturgical. f 
The contest was so long and bitter just because it was rightly 
understood that the most precious treasures of the rediscovered 

* Loofs, however, in his article, "Abendrnahl," in Hauck's Realenclyklopcidie, 
I, p. 65, is unduly anxious to maintain that, barring Carlstadt's theory, the "posi- 
tive thoughts of the Reformation period" concerning the eucharist are "not 
new." The context, to be sure, restricts this generalization to more moderate 
bounds. Certainly so far as Schwenckfeld, for example, is concerned, Loofs' 
statement can be applied only to the finally accepted symbolic doctrines of the 
Supper. Cf. Goetz, Die Abendmahlsjrage in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, 
p. 75, n. 2. 

t It is interesting to observe, however, as Harnack reminds us (Dogmenge- 
schichte, IIP, pp. 746, 762), that it is possible in a sense to construe Luther's whole 
reformation as a "reformation of the public worship." Rome had made the 
mass the very centre of her church service, and the work of the reformers in its 
negative but at the same time its most direct bearings was an attack in the 
name of subjective religion upon the citadel of the Romish liturgy. 



Gospel were at stake. The mere statement of the controverted 
points led thinking men to connect their views of the Supper with 
the deepest verities of their faith. It lay in the nature of the case, 
therefore, that sooner or later nearly every dogmatic problem of the 
day would be related to the question which, above all others, was 
beginning to divide the Protestants. 

In ascertaining the nature and value of the contribution made 
by any one of the reformers to the doctrine of the Lord's Supper it 
is necessary, therefore, to consider his views both from the stand- 
point of the fundamental principles of his system of thought and 
in the light of his historical surroundings. For to none of the con- 
testants did the eucharistic question appear as an end in itself, nor 
could any one of them attempt the solution of the problem without 
coming into conflict with various classes of opponents. 

To these considerations special weight ought to be given in the 
case of Caspar Schwenckfeld.* For on the one hand he belongs 
to that class of theological writers who have had the mis- 
fortune of being seriously misunderstood because persistently 
branded as " mystics."! It is of course to be admitted that his 
religious life revealed itself more in the language of strong and deep 
feeling than in any clearly articulated system of dialectics. It is 
likewise true, as Dornerf reminds us, that it must have been easy 
.for his contemporaries to represent his ideas as "only a perverse 
lot of the most wondrous idiosyncrasies." Moreover, he shows 
many points of contact and signs of kinship with some of the 
extreme spiritualistic fanatics. But for this very reason it is 
necessary to cast aside all prejudices and to lay hold of the inner 
connections, if such can be found, among these alleged fantastic 

* The spelling of the name is by no means uniform. Rriebel, The Schwenkfeld- 
ers in Pennsylvania, p. 1, n. 1, cites thirteen variations, and others might be 
added. Schneider gives some valid reasons in favor of the consonantal com- 
bination ck and a final d instead of dt or only t. See his tract, Ueber den gcschicht- 
lichen Verlauf der Reformation in Liegnitz, etc., Abt. 1, p. 27, n. 10. 

| That the epithet in some sense may properly be applied to Schwenckfeld it 
would be idle to deny. But what after all is mysticism? Inge, in his Bampton 
Lectures (1899) on Christian Mysticism, ventures the assertion (p. 1): "No word 
in our language — not even 'Socialism' — has been employed more loosely than 
jMvsticism,' " and in the Appendix he cites and criticises some twenty-six at- 
tempts by men of all schools of thought to define the term. With what propriety 
we may speak of Schwenckfeld as a mystic will, we hope, become thoroughly 
clear as we proceed. For the present it may be most advantageous to content 
ourselves with the statement that the word may as a matter of fact have a good 
as well as a bad sense. 

J Lehre von der Person Christi, p. 624. 



and heterogeneous elements. Great credit is here due to Erbkam,* 
whose treatment of Schwenckfeld is still, on the whole, the best; 
and to Baur,t who with his usual critical acumen saw the possibility 
and the need of doing Schwenckfeld a needed service by bringing 
out more clearly the hidden speculative elements of his system. J 
These and other writers have accustomed students of Schwenckfeld 
to the double conviction, not only that his views have a coher- 
ence that makes them worthy of investigation, but that of all the 
dissenting thinkers of the German Reformation he is the most 
systematic. § Whatever estimate we may form of his ' ' mysticism, ' ' 
we shall expect to discover in him at least somewhat more of logic 
and speculative strength than the traditional prejudices permitted 
some of the earlier historical writers to fmd.|| 

Not only, however, does the alleged mystical character of 
Schwenckfeld's theologizing necessitate our bringing his doctrine of 
the Supper into the closest possible relation to his whole system, but 
it is likewise more than ordinarily important, on the other hand, 

* Geschichte der protestantischen Sekten, pp. 357-475. 

f Die christliche Lehre von der Versbhnung in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung 
(1838) ; Die christl. Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit, etc. (1843) ; Zur Geschichte der 
prot. Mystik, in Theol. Jahrbiicher (1848). 

J Baur of course had no intention of converting Schwenckfeld the mystic into 
Schwenckfeld the rationalist, but the transformation, easy enough in itself and 
doubtless most congenial to a mind like Baur's, may be said, in spite of the reten- 
tion of the word "mysticism," to have been fairly accomplished. After all it 
is only a matter of taking Schwenckfeld's temperature at different times, now 
catching him in the warmth of a fervent piety and now finding him on the chilly 
heights of some abstract speculation. But though Baur (Theologische Jahr- 
biicher, 1848, p. 527) professes to be able to distinguish the "speculative content 
of the ideas from the peculiar form in which they have found expression," he 
can scarcely be acquitted of the charge of reading into Schwenckfeld some of his 
own ideas as to how the reformer might have avoided apparent or real contradic- 
tions. Dorner (I.e., p. 625) gives a truer judgment: "Doch kann auch nicht 
behauptet werden, dass er sich stets gleich blieb oder dass nicht unlosbare Wider- 
spriiche in seinem System liegen." 

§ Comp. Ficker, Handschriften des sechzehten Jahrhunderts, Kleine Ausgabe, 
Tafel 27, p. 75: "Er ist unter den religiosen Subjectivisten der Systematiker : 
sein mystischer Spiritualismus ist mit einem dogmatischen System verbunden, 
welches seine Ueberzeugungen geschlossener wirken lasst. ' ' 

|| See, e.g., Planck's capricious statement (Geschichte der Entstehung . . . .unseres 
protestantischen Lehrbegriffs, Vol. V, Th. 1, p. 184): "Diess war wenigstens im 
Ganzen die Wendung, welche die Ideen Schwenkfelds genommen, oder diess war 
ungefahr die Form, in welcher sich seine Phantasie alles, was dabei fur die Ver- 
nunft undenkbar war, denkbar gemacht hatte. Es ist leicht moglich, dass sie 
sich zu Zeiten in seinem Kopf auf eine etwas verschiedene Art zusammenf iigten, 
denn Vorstellungen, die keinen verniinftigen Zusammenhang zulassen, sind der 
mannigfaltigsten Zusammensetzung fahig. " 



to interpret such views as his in the light of the historical situation 
in which he found himself. This is so not only because of the un- 
usually extensive connections which he had with the most diverse 
parties in the Church,* but more particularly because every mystical 
movement in history is necessarily colored by the specific forms of 
religious deadness against which it rises to utter its protest. 

Fortunately Schwenckfeld informs us with admirable fullness 
concerning his relations to his contemporaries. f Born about 1490, J 
of an ancient and aristocratic family in Ossig, near Luben, in 
Silesia, reared a strict Catholic, educated at Liegnitz, Cologne, 
Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and at other but unknown institutions, 
serving about twelve years at the courts of several Silesian princes, 
this deeply religious young nobleman became one of the first in 
that section of Germany to embrace the evangelical cause. § Com- 
pelled in 1521 by reason of an affection of the ear to return to 
private life, he became a diligent student of the Scriptures.! He 
kept in touch with the leaders of the new movement, making several 
trips to Wittenberg and exchanging letters with Luther himself. 
Devoted heart and soul to the task of establishing the Reformation 
in Silesia, he secured in 1523 the able cooperation of a former notary 
and canon, Valentine Krautwald. 

But irreconcilable differences soon arose between Schwenckfeld 
and the Wittenbergers, resulting in 1527 in a complete and irre- 

* In this fact lies the chief justification for Keller's assertion (Die Reformation 
und die alteren Reformparteien, p. 463): "Es ware von der hochsten Wichtigkeit, 
die umfangreiche und interessante Correspondenz Schwenkfelds ans Licht zu 
Ziehen ; man wiirde iiberraschende Resultate daraus gewinnen. ' ' 

t But his works present only meagre details as to his early life. Hoffmann's 
account, Caspar Schwenckfelds Leben und Lehren, I, extending to only 1524 and 
constituting the first of six parts of what may become an adequate biography, 
draws largely from other important sources. Keim and Gerbert present the 
leading facts concerning Schwenckf eld's career in southern German}'. Ham] e, 
Zur Biographie Kaspars von Schwenckfeld, 18S2, is minute but brief, extending 
to 1539. Arnold, Salig, Planck, Dollinger, Erbkam, etc., give only the salient 
biographical data. 

J Neither the date of his birth (1489 or 1490) nor that of his death (1561 or 
1562) has as yet been fixed. 

§ The exact date of his conversion cannot be fixed. Hoffmann, p. 10, is inclined 
to put it as early as 1517; Moller is at least safe in declaring that by 1519 
Schwenckfeld had been won to the Lutheran cause (Kirchengeschichte, III, p. 444). 

|| Greek and Hebrew he seems to have acquired considerably later, certainly 
not before 1528. Cf. Erbkam, I.e., p. 363, n. 1. Hase is clearly in error, how- 
ever, when he delares (Kirchengeschichte, III, 1, p. 300): "Noch in seinem 64. 
Jahre lernte er Griechisch, um mit eigenen Augen zuzusehen, was Christus 
geredet habe." Letters and treatises written long before this evince a consider- 
able knowledge of the Greek Testament and the Fathers. 



mediable rupture. It is therefore worth while ascertaining, at the 
very outset, the logic of this event, the real turning-point in his 
career as a reformer. 

He had prided himself upon being an ardent disciple of Luther,* 
and though from the beginning he could not entirely agree with 
him,f he never forgot the incalculable service the great reformer 
had rendered to the cause of religion.^ The force of sacred 
convictions, however, proved stronger than this sense of grati- 
tude, deepened though it was by a peculiar reverence for his 
spiritual father. Schwenckfeld perceived that his whole concep- 
tion of Christianity differed so radically from Luther's that there 
was no possibility of a substantial agreement^ The common 
representation, not sufficiently modified even by Erbkam and Hahn, 
that the divergencies of opinion related primarily and chiefly to the 
eucharistic controversy opened by Carlstadt in 1524 fails, as Baur 
has pointed out, |j to look at the facts from the right angle. The 

* C 300d (anno 1531): "Ich habe mich der Lutherischen Lehre erkundet und 
seines Evangelii gebraucht mit moglichem Fleiss acht Jahre." Cf. C. 574c: 
"Denn ich habe, ohne Ruhm zu reden, in Doctor Luthers Buchern wohl so viel 
als Ihr studiert und (wollt mir's verzeihen) vielleicht ehe Ihr das a, b, c gelernt viel 
seiner Schriften mit moglichem Fleiss hinten und vorn gelesen, auch mit Gebet 
nach der Regel Pauli omnia probate fleissig erforscht und bewaret. ' ' 

t B 193b: "dass ich mit ihrem Evangelio nicht stimme, auch von Anfang nie 
ganzlich gestimmt habe." 

J Nothing more beautifully reveals Schwenckfeld's nobility of character than 
the oft-repeated expressions of his grateful appreciation of Luther's world- 
historical importance, even after the latter had coined the vulgar nickname 
'Stenkfeld" and in other ways outdone himself in vituperative abuse. See 
especially C 499 sq., 599d, D 4, 5, 6, 526, and C 701d, where he informs Luther 
under date of October 12, 1543: "Denn ob ich wohl nicht in alien Puncten euch 
kann unterschreiben, noch mit euch stimmen, so erkenne ich doch, dass ich euch 
nach Gott und der Wahrheit alle Ehre, Liebe, und Giite schuldig weil ich eures 
Dienstes anfanglich mitgenossen, so wohl als ich Gott den Herrn fur euch nach 
meinem armen Vermogen zu bitten noch nicht habe unterlassen. " Cf. C 745b 
690d. 

§ The influence on Schwenckfeld of the mystical Tauler and the German The- 
ology only widened the gulf. Schwenckfeld (C 596a) speaks with admiration, 
though not with unconditional approval, of his teacher Tauler. The fact is that 
Schwenckfeld forsook Luther for Tauler, whereas Luther, in opposition to the 
fanatical excesses of some of the spiritualists, felt it necessary more and more to 
recede from Tauler and to check the subjective tendencies he had himself cham- 
pioned in the opening days of the Reformation. Even before the disturbances 
at Wittenberg, however, Luther's mysticism began to decline. It must be said 
to have reached its summit as early as 1518 or 1519. Cf. Hering, Die Mystik 
Luthers, etc., p. 292 sq. 

|| Theol. Jahrb., 1848, pp. 504-506; cf. also his Lehre von der Versohnung, p. 462. 
For whatever fault may be found with Baur's one-sided emphasis on the specu- 
lative elements in Schwenckfeld at the expense of the strictly practical, that is 



6 

causes of the break must be distinguished from its mere occasion. 
Prior to all questions about the nature of the Lord's presence in 
the sacramental ordinance or about the constitution of his person 
is the consideration of his very purpose or mission in the world. 
Nothing less than the whole problem of the nature of salvation — 
the question how the sinful soul may be reunited with God — was 
Schwenckfeld's basal concern. He could not accept Luther's 
explanation of the Supper, but this inability was only indicative of, 
and conditioned by, his inability to accept without safeguarding 
modifications the doctrine which his chief opponent came to regard 
as the article of a standing or falling Church, justification by faith 
alone. Implied in this, as we shall see, was a generically different 
view as to the Word, the Sacraments, and the Church, and like- 
wise as to the nature of the process of salvation itself. 

Schwenckfeld, we repeat, was governed at the outset by thor- 
oughly practical considerations. He wanted the new presentation of 
the Gospel to bring forth, in the lives of his fellow-men, an abundant 
fruit unto holiness. He was deeply grieved by some of those epigram- 
matic but easily misunderstood half-truths with which Luther so 
often sought to help his own and his partisans' faith. He feared, 
and his experience more and more justified his fears, that Luther's 
gospel was becoming popular at the expense, to some extent, of 
sound morality.* He deplored the lack of good works, the absence 
of strict discipline, the interference of the avaricious princes in the 
affairs of the Church, and the manifestly false security of many pro- 
fessed Christians the chief article of whose creed was that their 
organization was the only one worthy of comparison with that of 
the Apostles. The Lutherans are often characterized, along with 
the Romanists, as Antichrist, because, according to him, they have 
no spiritual discernment, but mistake the letter for the spirit, a 
historical for a vital faith in Christ, f 

of the religious and moral as distinguished from the theological or philosophic 
interests that dominated the reformer, there can be no doubt that in the main 
his strictures upon Hahn and Erbkam are borne out by the facts. 

* This does not mean, as the charge so often but falsely brought against 
Luther's gospel maintains, that he furnished no adequate basis or motive for 
ethical conduct. On the contrary, no one of the reformers better understood 
either the need or the method of supplying morality with the motive power of a 
deep religious faith. But his words not seldom seemed to mock his principles, 
and unfortunately his devoted followers were apt to swear by the caricature of 
their leader rather than by his real self. Cf. Harnack, Dogmengeschichle , III 3 , 
p. 784, n. 1, and Seeberg, Dogmengeschichte, II, p. 244, n. 1. 

t This charge has of course ever been a familiar expedient in the hands of spir- 



The real nature and extent of the differences will become more 
apparent as we proceed. Enough has been said to give point to 
the present contention that the divergencies on the eucharistic 
question were after all only symptomatic of those deeper differences 
that concerned the very essence of the faith.* 

Unable as Schwenckfelcl was to identify himself with the Luth- 
eran movement, he had become too thorough a Protestant to find 
it possible to reenter the Roman Church. He is well aware, indeed, 
that his works were at times better received by the Romanists 
than by the Lutherans, f and in 1528 he even declares that if only 
he could have freedom of conscience he would rather join the former 
than the latter. J But the logic of his situation kept him true to 
Protestantism. He rejected the hierarchy, the priesthood, the 
mass, the confessional, and the ceremonialism of the Romish 
Church, as well as all her dogmas that clashed with his distinctive 
peculiarities. If the Lutherans made too much of the letter of 
Scripture to the neglect of its spirit, the Romanists made too much 
of meritorious works to the disparagement of genuine faith. Rome 
gave too much scope to the mere traditions of men. In fine, he 
was bound as a real Protestant to oppose Roman Catholicism. 

Between Romanism and Lutheranism Schwenckfeld sought to 
establish the "Reformation of the Middle Way." He declares: 
"There are now in general two leading parties that misuse the 
Gospel of Christ, inasmuch as the one departs in many particulars 

itualistic heretics. For a well-selected list of passages from Schwenckf eld's works 
concerning the undeniable ethical deficiences of the German Reformation, see 
Dollinger, Die Reformation, I, pp. 257-280. The testimony of other writers, 
there given, shows by contrast Schwenckfeld's fairness and moderation Luther 
himself was as severe as any of the other censors (p. 295 sqq.), 

* See, e.g., the Erklarung etlicher streitiger Artikel beim Missbrauch des Evangeliii 
etc., in D 375 sqq., where no one of the five "abused" articles explicitly refers 
to the eucharist. Cf . also C, pp. 1009-1012, where in parallel columns Schwenck- 
feld compares and contrasts twelve cardinal articles of his faith with those of the 
Lutherans, only two of the points dealing directly with the Supper and a 
third indirectly. The high Lutheran Kurtz (Kirchengeschichte, 9. Aufl., 2. B., 
p. 150) therefore fails to do justice to Schwenckfeld when he declares: "Was 
Schwenckfeld an der luth. Reformation so sehr zuwider, war nichts anders als ihre 
feste biblisch-kirchliche Objectivitat." Rather was it primarily the externalism 
of Luther's movement that provoked his opposition and caused his deeply 
spiritual nature to develop a radically different conception of Christianity. To 
be sure, Schwenckfeld could not grasp Luther in his entirety, nor even do justice 
to his doctrine of justification. On the other hand, it ought not to be forgotten 
that Luther's words were peculiarly liable to misinterpretation. 

t B 460ab. 

t C 645d. 



to the left, and the other to the right, from the only straight and 
true way of the Lord. The first party is that of the papacy, that 
despises the Gospel of Christ with his saving ministry, and will not 
perceive the salutary grace of God that has been manifested nor 
the clearer light of revealed truth, but abides and perseveres, 
in doctrine and life, in its old errors."* "The other party con- 
sists of those whom God has in these days granted a gracious light, 
in which they to a certain extent perceive what is right and Chris- 
tian, but who by no means live up to this light, although they wish 
to be regarded as evangelical; indeed, they make the Gospel min- 
ister to their pride, greed, lust, and ambition, to their crimes and 
misdeeds, to serve as a defense for their sinful living. These, 
much as they pretend to be better and more evangelical than 
others, are rather a dishonor, disgrace, and mocking-stock to the 
evangelical truth and name, while they live unevangelically, without 
the fear of God and without regard for man, in spite of all then- 
praise for the Gospel. "f 

In many important respects, however, Schwenckfeld must be 
conceived not as a mediator between Romanism and Lutheranism, 
but as the spokesman of a more advanced reform movement. He 
often speaks of the Anabaptists as a third party in the Church of his 
day, and it cannot be doubted that there was an inner kinship 
between him and them. He was in unmistakable sympathy with 
their disciplinary zeal. He had come under the influence of 
their spiritualistic individualism, and heartily shared their ten- 
dency to make light of the sacraments. He early counseled the 
abolition of infant baptism, or at least the reduction of the sacra- 
ment to a mere ' ' ecclesiastical baptism, " to be later reinforced by 
the true baptism of the Spirit. During his many wanderings in 
southern Germany he preferred to labor in fields that had been 
visited by Anabaptists. So closely related, in fact, are the sub- 
jective tendencies of Schwenckfeld and these more radical leaders 
that he has been regarded by some as a real adherent of this party.! 

But he cannot justly be classified with the Anabaptists. He wanted 
toleration for them, § but this was only in keeping with his advanced 

* D 35Gd. 

t D 360a. Cf. also p. 710c, on the right mean between the papacy and Luther- 
anism, and C G55d. 

% Keller, e.g., says: "obwohl die ganze Welt M^isste, dass Schwenkfeld im 
Grunde ein Wiedertaufer war." See Die Reformation, etc., p. 463. 

§ A 98, and compare the Latin letter to Bucer published by Schneider, Ueber 
den geschichtlichen Verlauf der Reformation in Liegnitz, etc., Abt. I, Beilage III, 
p. 37. 



ideas concerning the freedom of conscience in matters of religion * 
He did, to be sure, confess : ' ' The Anabaptists are for this reason 
more to my liking, because they concern themselves somewhat 
more than many of the learned for the divine truth, "f But he 
declares explicitly that he is no adherent of this sect,$ and that he 
will never become one.§ It is a fact, moreover, that the Ana- 
baptists themselves rejected his views and persecuted him.|| He, 
on the other hand, was opposed to their pitiable legalism, their 
ecclesiastical externalism and exclusiveness, and their lack of 
"spiritual knowledge."^ 

Schwenckfeld commonly speaks, in the last place, of a fourth 
Christian Church or sect of his day, the Zwinglians. From then- 
mediating position between the Romanists and Lutherans on the 
one hand and the Anabaptists on the other, one might suppose that 
the persecuted nobleman would have found some way of coming to 
terms with this party. But here too the differences concerning 
the eucharist were only of secondary importance. 

At first, to be sure, the mediators of southern Germany, especially 
Bucer, Capito, and Zell of Strassburg, cordially received him.** In 
1524 CEcolampadius of Basel even ventured, in his contest with 
the Wittenbergers, to publish, without the author's consent or 
knowledge, a letter of Schwenckfeld's that contained some char- 
acteristic anti-Lutheran views. Zwingli afterwards did the same 
with Schwenckfeld's first treatise — it was a letter to some Strassburg 
friends — on the Lord's Supper. But however much the Silesian 
might have in common with the Swiss as against Luther, there was 
no possibility of agreeing in any positive view of the eucharist. 
Schwenckfeld, moreover, took as much offense at Zwingli's as at 
Luther's doctrine of predestination.ff In fact the antagonisms 

* See, e.g., A 78 sq., 869 sq., 874 sqq. It is in view of such strong assertions that 
Dr. Hartranft, Prospectus concerning the Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum, 1884, 
speaks of Schwenckfeld as the man "who of all the leaders of the Reformation 
penetrated furtherst into the spirit of religious liberty, who asserted its prin- 
ciples with unequivocal faithfulness and unflinching courage." 

t C 307b. 

% Cf . D 375, 16a, A 490a. 

§ B 155c. 

|| C 1012 and D 371 sqq. 

If A 513, 801-808. 

** Gerbert, Geschichte der Strassburger Sectenbewegung zur Zeit der Reformation, 
1889, is especially to be consulted on Schwenckfeld's relations to these men. See 
p. 135 for Capito's favorable judgment of the Silesian as late as 1534. 

ft He called it a dogma Platonicum and a fatum Stoicum; D 418ab, cf. 407a, 
415 sq. 



10 

here, as in the case of the Romanists, Lutherans, and Anabaptists, 
involved the basal elements of the Christian faith.* 

In no one of the four chief branches of the divided Church, 
therefore, could Schwenckfeld feel at home. "Why should any 
one be surprised," he inquires, "if I or any other simple-minded 
man should now concern himself about the Christian Church and 
try to find where it is, inasmuch as among the four leading Churches 
one openly condemns the others? The papal Church condemns 
the Lutheran, the Lutheran condemns the Zwinglian, the Zwinglian 
persecutes the Anabaptists, and the Anabaptists condemn all 
others. But inasmuch as Christ is not divided, and his Spirit is a 
spirit of concord and not of dissension, he cannot, it is manifest, 
be ruling in all at the same time. ' 'f It would be doing Schwenck- 
feld a grave injustice, therefore, to attribute to him any vain desire 
to found a new sect.J He repeatedly avers that he has no pleasure 
in being regarded as the head of the ' ' Schwenckfelders. ' ' It was 
loyalty to his convictions, as he understood the truths of revelation, 
that compelled him to maintain this four-cornered contest. At- 
tacked and persecuted by all the great parties, he defended him- 
self by means of an astonishing literary activity. Having left 
Silesia late in 1528 or early in 1529, in order not to be a source of 
trouble to his friend and patron, the Duke of Liegnitz, he spent the 
rest of his life in southern Germany, roaming from city to city, 
gathering his followers in quiet conventicles, answering the many 
letters of inquiry addressed to him, gaining special influence among 
the nobles and the lowly, and inspiring all with his own spirit of 
toleration, courage, and sincerity. 

Such, in broad outline, is the historical situation in which 
Schwenckfeld developed and sought to popularize his peculiar con- 
ception of the rediscovered Gospel. Unable to identify himself with 
any of the leading movements of religious thought, he was never- 
theless deeply influenced by them all. His spiritualistic tendencies 
were everywhere colored, as was inevitable, by the theological 
formulas of the age. His characteristic opinions are the product 
of his peculiar ' ' mysticism, ' ' influenced by the types of thought in 

* Schwenckfeld seldom names Calvin, and doubtless he knew little of his dis- 
tinctive doctrines. Their views in many particulars, as we shall have occasion 
to observe, present striking resemblances. But the presuppositions, it is need- 
less to add, are irreconcilably different. 

t A 95cd. 

t C 571b. 



11 

the four chief branches of the Church as known to him, Romanism, 
Lutheranism, Zwinglianism, and Anabaptism. 

It is our purpose, therefore, to examine his views from the pre- 
cise angle from which this historical situation constantly compelled 
him to set them forth, from the standpoint of the eucharistic con- 
troversy. 

It will be most advantageous to begin with Schwenckfeld's con- 
ception of the sacraments in general. This will introduce us to 
the presuppositions of his whole system of thought, and enable us 
to estimate aright his positive contribution to the many-sided dis- 
cussion of the Supper. 

Our author's language concerning the nature of the sacraments 
is not devoid of that carelessness as to terminology which renders 
so many of his statements difficult of interpretation. At first 
sight, indeed, it might appear that, at least so far as ' ' the means of 
grace ' ' are concerned, there is little room for doubt as to his precise 
meaning. The many misrepresentations of his views, however, 
clearly prove that the matter is not so simple as a casual reading 
might lead one to suppose. Occasional utterances, taken apart 
from their context, have been made to support the extreme asser- 
tion that he deprived the sacraments of all objective content, 
efficacy, and worth whatsoever. On the other hand, there are 
statements which would not be out of place in any fair exposition 
of the Reformed or even the Lutheran doctrine of the means of 
grace. Manifestly we must, if possible, find a logical mean between 
such apparently contradictory views. 

In the first place, therefore, full justice must be done to Schwenck- 
feld's unequivocal opposition to the term Gnadenmittel. Only a 
few of the numberless passages can be cited. "In fine, the doc- 
trine of means is an old sophistical doctrine, by which the hearts 
are turned away from Christ in heaven down toward the creatures,* 
in order there to find grace. "f "We on the contrary affirm that 
all who seek salvation through creaturely means or external things, 
no matter what they may be called, and not exclusively through the 
sole mediator, the man Jesus Christ, are false teachers and lead 
away from Christ, who is the only way, the door, means and media- 
tor, through whom we draw nigh unto God. "J "Christ will give 
us himself through the Holy Spirit, not through bodily means or 

* For Schwenckf eld's peculiar idea of creaturehood, see pp. 36 sqq. 
t C 486d, 487. 
t C 507c. 



12 

men, but through himself, in order that we by daily eating in faith 
his flesh and blood may have fellowship with him and become par- 
takers of his nature and essence."* "God must himself, apart 
from all external means, through Christ move the soul, speak to 
it, work in it, if we are to have any experience of salvation and 
eternal life. "| ' ' Just as the Head is the Saviour of the whole body, 
so he [i.e., any reader of Ephesians 5] will soon find that here no 
bodily, external means or instrument can intervene as little as 
between the vine and its branches. "J Again, we are told "that 
the Eternal and Almighty God, whom nothing can resist, does not 
work through means or instruments like a cobbler or tailor, but 
he acts freely and effects our salvation through himself, in Christ 
his Son, although he also uses the service of the creatures to the 
praise of his grace and for the good of man; but he is not bound 
thereto. ' ' § 

Schwenckfeld's application of these basal principles to the sacra- 
ment of the Supper resulted, as is well known, in his dispensing 
altogether with the observance of this ordinance. The fierce dis- 
putes about the eucharist that prevailed even among the seven 
factions of the Lutherans themselves,|| and in general the attention, 
one-sided and excessive as he thought, that was paid to external 
rites, led the reformer to counsel his followers to abstain, for the 
time being, from all participation in this act of worship.^ 

Schwenckfeld's depreciatory views and practice concerning the 
Supper have their close parallel, as might be expected, in his teach- 
ings concerning baptism. We have already seen that in common 
with the Swiss radicals he rejected the baptism of children.** But 
even in the case of adults there may be no necessity, either of means 
or of precept, for this sacrament. It all depends, as we shall find, 
upon the far-reaching distinction between the "inner" and the 
* l outer" transaction, between the "baptism by the Spirit" and 
the "baptism by water." Whether Schwenckfeld's view of this 

* A 868d. 

t A 768b. 

J A 866c. 

§ A 424c; cf. C 86b, 482c, 486d, 507c, 532b, 997b, 1005b. 

||C259d. 

*I For his self-justification in this so-called Stillstand, see such passages as A 
736 sq., 761, B 225c, C 274b, 640d, 895a, 983a. 

** C 288-293 gives thirty reasons against pedobaptism. But^this issue was not 
a burning one for him. He declares: "Mir ist auch fur meine Person gar Nichts 
am Kindertauf gelegen; man taufe oder taufe nicht, so lass ich's dabei bleiben, 
wollte lieber dass dieser Artikel noch zur Zeit geschwiegen wurde" (C 286d). 



13 

rite is a "high" or a "low" one will depend, manifestly, upon 
which of the two aspects of the sacrament he has in mind.* For 
the present it may suffice to say that the above statements about 
the utter uselessness of external means of grace, in the ordinary 
sense of the term, apply as much to the one sacrament as to the 
other. 

Again, Schwenckfeld's theory of the Church is likewise influenced 
by this fundamental dualism between the inner realities of religion 
and their external signs. It cannot be denied that he lacked all 
interest injscclesiastical organizations. The fact that he was the 
real founder of conventicles among the dissenters of the German 
Reformation is no refutation of this assertion. His followers have, 
moreover, maintained their independent existence to this day. But 
these facts cannot be traced to any teaching of his as to the need or 
utility of a corporate church life. On the contrary, as Gerbert 
remarks: " Schwenckfeld lacked every tendency toward ecclesias- 
ticism; in fact, he entered into a decided opposition to the Pro- 
testantism that was shaping itself into Churches. ' '| His spiritual- 
ism shared in this respect the defects of all genuine mysticism : the 
benefits of communal life for the individual are not duly appreci- 
ated. With no talent for administration and no desire for the sep- 
arate organization of his adherents, he was content, for the sake 
of the peace of Christendom, to work quietly on a small scale, and 
to trust to the power of his teachings for the defeat of his better 
marshaled foes. With his opposition to all external ecclesiasticism, 
he was only partially successful in realizing the importance of the 
Church as a factor in the salvation of the world. J 

But we must go even farther. The Scriptures themselves seem 
to be endangered. The Pauline antithesis between the letter and 
the spirit is applied in a manner which at least gives color to the 
charge that Schwenckfeld rejected the normative authority of the 

* It may here by way of anticipation be admitted, therefore, that Schwenck- 
feld in his use of the term "sacrament" often employs an undistributed middle. 
He professes to adopt Augustin's definition (In Joann., 80 : 3) — "accedit verbum 
ad elementum et fit sacramentum etiam ipsum tanquam verbum visibile" — but ere 
long either the elementum or the verbum is spiritualized: the former becomes the 
Holy Ghost or the latter the Eternal Word. 

t£.c.,p. 135; cf.p.170. 

J Meanwhile, however, his admitted partial success may serve to remind us 
that his subjectivism was not of that extreme kind that cut itself loose absolutely 
from the historic past. Here too, in other words, we may expect to find a more 
satisfactory aspect of his doctrine of the Church than that commonly ascribed to 
him and necessitated, it would seem, by some of his own statements. 



14 

Bible. Certainly, if only his most radical assertions were considered, 
there would be little to differentiate him from the most fanatical 
of the extremists. There is no end to the criticism of the Buch- 
stabler who, in mastering only the letter of Scripture, fail to discern 
its real, spiritual content. Schriftgelehrte and Gottesgelehrte are 
generally separated by precisely the whole diameter in a given 
sphere of speculation. In endless variety through all his numerous 
works runs this polemic against the alleged deification of the letter 
of Scripture by all four of the great Church parties. The external 
word is not the real Word. The preached Gospel is not the true 
Evangel, the genuine Mysterium. The Scriptures are not to be 
identified out of hand with the Word of God.* 

It is plain that we have here fallen upon a fundamental line of 
thought whose ramifications we may expect to encounter at every 
step of our progress. We have in fact begun to lay bare the very 
heart of Schwenckfeld's gospel. As in many another theological 
system, so also in his, the Word and sacraments are indissolubly linked 
together. To ascertain the true nature of his theory of the sacra- 
ments, therefore, we are bound to examine his views concerning 
the Word of God. But the identification of the Word with the 
Son at once raises the larger question, What did he think of Christ? 

Schwenckfelcl reveals himself as a genuine disciple of the Reform- 
ation by his clear grasp of the central importance in Christianity 
of the Redeemer's person and work.f As some of the passages 
already cited will have made clear, Christ is regarded as the only 
possible mediator between man and God.J No saints can share 

* The passages on these points are literally innumerable. They disprove the 
thesis of Loofs (Dogmengeschichte 3 , p. 373) about the "dainals nirgends ange- 
fochtene Gleichsetzung von Id. Schrift und Wort Gottes." Cf. Harnack, Dog- 
meng., Ill 3 , p. 791. 

f There was, to be sure, a latent tendenc}' to make more of the "person" 
than of the "work," that is, to permit the objective atonement of the historic 
Jesus unduly to recede from view behind the incarnation considered as the great 
redemptive fact. This was, moreover, a logical necessity in his system. At the 
same time it must be said that the tendency was in part overcome by the reformer's 
conscientious study of the Biblical basis of justification by faith. It is an inac- 
curate representation of the case, therefore, when Hodge declares (Systematic 
Theology, I, p. 83): "He said that we are justified not by what Christ has done 
for us, but by what He has done within us. " How much is made of the Saviour's 
mission in his estate of humiliation will be shown later. Meanwhile it is to be con- 
ceded that the essence of Schwenckfeld's Christianity is to be found in his altogether 
unique doctrine of the deification of Christ's flesh. What this principle logically 
implied is one thing; what modification he gave it in practice is quite another. 

t See also A 47ab, 547b, 5S3 sqq., 7G7. 



15 

this relationship with him.* In the biblical phrase "through 
Christ" the very preposition promotes his jealous regard for the 
honor of the Son as an absolutely divine Saviour.f No theologian, 
in fact, has ever more strongly recognized both the supernatural 
and the Christocentric character of Christianity .J Hence the 
numberless reminders that to know Christ aright is life's chief 
duty. § The whole Gospel is conceived as a fourfold revelation of 
the promises and prophecies concerning Christ, of their actual ful- 
fillment, of his glorification, and of our participation in him. || 
Firmly and squarely, therefore, Schwenckfeld took his stand upon 
the ultimate and comprehensive basis of the Reformation, the prin- 
ciple that salvation flows not from man but from God through 
Christ. What then constitutes the essential difference between 
him and his diverse antagonists? The answer is found in his char- 
acteristic doctrine of the spiritualistic mediatorship of Christ, 
which affected the whole range of his thought and fixed a gulf 
between him and his opponents on all questions pertaining to the 
Scriptures, the Church and the Sacraments. We therefore pro- 
ceed, in the light of this central fact, to take a second survey of 
these related subjects, reproducing as faithfully as possible the 
polemic bearings of his system. 

First in the order of thought, as also in the order of importance, 
is the antinomy between the Scriptures and the Word of God. 
And on this, as on most of the other issues, the chief opposition 
was directed against the party from whom he had learned most, 
the Lutherans. 

Luther had rediscovered the Christian religion by rediscovering 
the central truth of the Gospel, the revelation of God's grace in 
Jesus Christ. Deeply influenced by the German mystics — they 
were, of course, the legitimate representatives of vital piety in 
those days, in opposition to that official system of scholastic the- 
ology, mediaeval asceticism and sensuous ecclesiasticism that had 
all but converted religion into a flat moralism — he none the less 
was saved from all ecstatic excesses by the safeguards of a pro- 
foundly ethical spirit that never failed to ground the assurance of 

* D 102, 290. 
f D 292, cf. 339b. 

t See e.g., A 327 sq., 725c, D 287, 595, 647, 655, 698. 

§ A 239, 631, 644 sq., 664, 907 sqq. See the treatise (D 77-91), Ermahnung zur 
wahren und seligmachenden Erkenntnis Christi. 
II A 860-865. 



16 

its pardon, the joy of its salvation, upon the objectively revealed 
truth of God, and therefore upon the historic work of Christ. His 
pearl of greatest price was his faith, the assurance, based upon the 
Scriptures, that he by the merit of Christ was standing in the favor 
of God. But in the light of his personal experience, and especially 
under pressure from the Romanists, his enemies on the right wing, 
Luther was now led to criticise and indeed to subvert the traditional 
theory of the magical ex opere operato efficacy of the sacraments. 
In fact the very existence of these rites, regarded in any proper 
sense of the term as means of grace, was endangered. Reduced in 
number from seven to two (or three),* they furthermore became 
mere external signs of the one true sacrament, the Word.f Gauged 
by his principle, ' ' faith constitutes the power of the sacrament, ' ' 
their value is seen to be reduced practically to nothing. % 

But Luther hi those first days of heroic defense and aggression 
went much farther. It is well known with what boldness and 
scorn of logical consequences he could apply the criterion of his 
own religious experience to the books of the New Testament, 
namely, whether or not they made Christ their chief concern. § 
He did not hesitate, therefore, to lay threatening hands upon the 
letter of Scripture, whenever it seemed impossible to bring the text 
into harmony with the facts of his own religious life. The very 
term ' ' Word of God" had not from the first that fixed content and 
value which it later acquired. He had freely employed the Augus- 
tinian distinction between the "inner" and the "outer" Word. || 

* See the treatise, De Captivitale Babylonica, which is not only epoch-making in 
the history of the sacraments in general, but also fundamental to Luther's develop- 
ment of the doctrine of the Supper in particular. 

f Cf. Thimme, Entwicklung und Bedeutung der Sakramentslehre Luthers, in the 
Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 1901, p. 754. On the general subject of Luther's 
doctrine of the sacraments consult also Kahnis, Die Lehre vom Abendmahl, 
Gobel, in Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1S43, 2. H., pp. 333 sqq., and the 
histories of doctrine, especially Seeberg. 

J Cf. his Unterricht an die Bcichtkinder (anno 1521): "Das gottliche Wort, 
in der Bulle verdammt, ist mehr denn alle Dinge, welches die Seele nicht mag 
entbehren, mag aber wohl des Sacraments entbehren; so wird dich der rechte 
Bischof Christus sel'oer speisen, geistlich, mit demselben Sacrament. Lass dir 
nicht seltsam sein, ob du dasselbe Jahr nicht zum Sacrament gehest" (St. Louis 
Ed., Vol. XIX, col. 812). 

§ Literally ' ' drive Christ " (" Christum treiben ") ; Preface to the Ep. of James. 

|| It ought at once to be added, however, that Luther soon succeeded in estab- 
lishing a definite and fixed relation between the two: the former is, to all intents 
and purposes, bound to the latter. 



17 

It is idle to speculate as to what he might have done with this 
formula had it not, in the hands of the fanatics, imperiled his 
whole achievement. The fact remains, however, that not only in 
his critical remarks on the New Testament books, but in many an 
occasional utterance as well, he countenanced the separation, so 
dear to the mystic's heart, between the Scriptures and the Word 
of God, between the "outer" and the "inner" Word.* 

It was with such aspects of Luther's original teachings that 
Schwenckfeld was in perfect accord. f In this sense he interpreted 
the immediate past. "Thus our doctores in the beginning taught 
the true view of the Word of God and his divine ordinance, and 
built upon the one solid foundation, namely, upon the eternal living 
Word Christ which is with the Father. They accordingly taught 
that faith and eternal salvation are not bound to any external 
word or work nor given through any external means, but, as God's 
work, gift, and pure grace, they come without means from God 
and the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ, who as the head flows 
into them as the members of his body. "J And for this very 
reason Schwenckfeld frequently expresses his disapproval of the 
reactionary tendency that took hold of Luther about the year 1522. 
"Thereafter, however, when they began to quarrel so much and 
give then carnal desires so much scope in the things of God; after 
the controversy on the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ 
had arisen, .... they inverted the true order in the work of 
God, in the spread of his Word, and in man's justification, and in 
this and many other respects they held and taught views contrary 
to their former doctrine and books, so palpably indeed that one 
could fairly lay hands on the discrepancy." § 

That Luther's view of the Word and sacraments did in fact 
suffer a retrogressive transformation cannot be denied. || We 

* Cf. Schenkel, Das Wesen dcs Protestantismus, I, 130; Harnack, Dogmeng., Ill 3 , 
771 sq.; Loofs, Dogmeng., p. 373. 

t It would be instructive to carry out in detail the resemblances — often enough , 
of course, they are merely verbal and superficial — between Schwenckfeld and 
Luther before the outbreak of the Wittenberg disturbances. Cf. Hase (Kirchen- 
geschichte, III, 1, p. 300): "Er hielt eine Richtung fest, das innere Geistes- 
christenthum, die friiher auch in Luther eine Macht war. ' ' 

t C 339cd. 

§ L.c, p. 340c. 

|| Thimme, I.e., p. 876, is inclined to think that the differences between the 
earlier and the later Luther on the subject of the sacraments have been unduly 
emphasized as against the confessedly common and permanent elements. After 
2 



18 

cannot go into the details of this reaction. Only a few of the more 
striking passages may be cited in order that we may the better 
understand Schwenckfeld's polemic* ' ( God deals with us in two 
ways: externally through the oral word and through bodily signs 
(baptism and the eucharist). Inwardly he deals with us through 
the Holy Spirit and faith together with other gifts; but always in 
due order and measure, so that the external things shall and must 
precede, and the internal things come after and through the ex- 
ternal ones; in such wise, that he has determined to give the inter- 
nal things to no one save through the external things; for he will 
give no one the Spirit or faith without the external word and sign 
which he has appointed for that purpose."! ^ r ery characteristic 
is his assertion : ' ' God lets the Word of the Gospel go forth and the 
seed fall into the hearts of men. Where the seed is lodged in the 
heart, there is the Holy Spirit to regenerate; there is produced 
another man, other thoughts, other words and works. "J How 
much importance is at times attached to the verbum vocale may be 
seen in the following statement: "The fingers which baptized 
me are not the fingers of a man but of the Holy Spirit, and the 
mouth and word of the preacher which I heard are not his but the 
word and sermon of the Holy Spirit." § 

But it is needless to multiply the evidences: in the genuinely 

all, it is a question of having an adequate standard of measurement. To a man 
of Schwenckfeld's type the differences, even as Thimme represents them, would 
necessarily appear to constitute a lamentable relapse toward Rome. That Re- 
formed theologians will in this matter agree with Harnack's severe criticism of 
Luther goes without saying. Harnack, Dogmeng., IIP, 792 sqq. 

* Otto, Die Anschauungen vom heiligen Geiste bei Luther (Gottingen, 1898), 
has an excellent section on the relation of the Word and Spirit in Luther. 

f Luther s Werke, St. Louis Ed., XX, col. 202. The Augsburg Confession gave 
classical expression to this view (Schaff, Creeds, III, p. 10): "Nam per Verbum 
et Sacramenta, tanquam per instrumenta, donatur Spiritus Sanctus, qui fidem 
efficit, ubi et quando visum est Deo, in iis, qui audiuut Evangelium." Luther 
himself in the Schmalcald Articles maintained (Hase, Libri Sy?nbolici, P. Secunda, 
Artt. Smalc, VIII, 3) : "Et in his, quae vocale et externum verbum concernunt, 
constanter tenendum est, Deum nemini Spiritum vel gratiam suam largiri, nisi, 
per verbum et cum verbo externo et proscedente, ut ita praemuniamus nos 
adversus Enthusiastas, id est, spiritus, qui jactitant, se ante verbum et sine 
verbo spiritum habere, et adeo Scripturam sive vocale verbum judicant, flectunt 
et reflectunt pro libito." He went so far as to say (ibid., VIII, 9): "Et nullus 
Propheta, sive Elias sive Elisaeus, Spiritum sine decalogo sive verbo vocali 
accepit." 

J St. Louis Ed., IX, col. 1163. 

§ This and many other equally remarkable passages may be found in Otto, I.e. 



19 

Lutheran conception the Spirit is bound to the Word and the 
sacraments, and these contain in themselves the supernatural 
grace which produces saving effects in the believing heart.* More 
and more the visible sign had been magnified until, in alleged con- 
formity with the commandment of God, the external sacrament is 
identified as a verbum visibile with the Word, and this in turn is 
made the real manifestation of God's grace. 

Against this conception of Christianity, in which he rightly 
divined a retrogression toward Rome, Schwenckfeld opposed first 
of all a generically different theory of the Word. The distinction 
between the "inner" and the " outer' ' Word assumes a basal 
importance. The following passage contains the heart of the 
matter: "The Word, therefore, when the servants of the Spirit 
preach or teach, is of two kinds, but with a marked difference in 
the transactions: one which is of God and itself God, which also 
richly lives and works in the servant's heart; that is the inner Word, 
and is in reality nothing other than Christ in the Holy Spirit. It 
is inwardly revealed and heard by the new man with the believing 
ears of the heart. The other, which serves this inner Word with 
voice, sound and expression, is called the oral or external Word, 
and this is heard with carnal ears, even those of the natural man, 
and is written and read in letters. But he who has read or heard 
only that and not also the inner Word has not heard the Gospel of 
Christ, the Gospel of grace, nor has he received or understood it."f 
Corresponding, then, to the inner and the outer Word are two 
kinds of hearing, two kinds of faith, two kinds of knowledge of 
Christ, two kinds of biblical exegesis : that of the letter and that of 
the Spirit. The prime requisite is a spiritual apprehension of the 
Gospel, i.e., of Christ the Word. 

But of what account, then, are the Scriptures? That they are in 
no case to be regarded as ' ' means of grace, ' ' in the ordinary sense 
of the term, we have already seen. But Schwenckfeld's repug- 
nance to the term Gnadenmittel must not mislead us into supposing 
that he took the position of the extreme radicals on this question. 

* The adjective "believing" is of course all-important in the Lutheran state- 
ment. Schwenckfeld indulged in much unwarranted criticism of his opponents 
because of his misapprehension of the nature of their "faith." 

t A 767ab; see the whole letter, pp. 764-780. Cf. D 241, 330, 361, 563, 630bc, 
887a, and the tract Vom Unterschiede des Worts des Geistes und Buchstabens . 
This dualism concerning the Word colors the whole work of Schwenckfeld. It 
is based, as we shall find, upon a philosophic dualism between God and the creature 
world. 



20 

We must do justice, in turn, to what we may regard as the higher 
elements of his view. 

The Bible, it is clearly recognized, comes from God.* It is in- 
spired by the Holy Spirit, f In numberless passages Schwenck- 
feld seeks to clear himself from the charge that he is a despiser of 
the sacred oracles. He repudiates the calumny of his enemy 
Flacius Illyricus, who charged him with teaching that ' ' faith is not 
according to the Holy Scripture, but the Holy Scripture must be 
directly conformed to faith. "J The Scriptures should be faithfully 
read and diligently preached. § Catechetical instruction in them 
ought to be revived. || Picture books dealing with biblical events 
ought to be printed for the special benefit of children. If 

But still weightier considerations must be brought forward. 
Schwenckfeld unequivocally asserts the normative and binding 
authority of the Scriptures. To be sure the contrary, as has been 
noted, seems at times to be the case. None the less the Bible 
was his last court of appeal. On all the controverted points of the 
age he went directly to the Scriptures.** With him as with his 
opponents the final question was simply the exegetical one. ft He 
never presumes to place his Christian consciousness in a position 
of higher authority than that of the written Word. J J He ex- 

* A 441, D 545a. f D 868b. J C 464b ; cf . D 545, 868. 

§ C486: "Und am ersten dass Philippi [Melanchthons] Beschuldigung nicht 
wahr ist, dass ich das Horen, Lesen, Betrachten des gescliriebenen oder mund- 
lichen Evangelii verwerfe oder sage, dass Gott nicht dabei (wenn's ini Glauben 
geschieht) mit Gnaden wirke." The following is decisive on the question of 
preaching the Word (B 162c): "Der Predigt halben wunscht er, dass nicht 
allein in den Kirchen, sondern auch in Hausern, auf den Miirkten und Dachern . 
zu Wasser und Land, der Name Jesu Christi recht bekannt werde, ja dass in der 
ganzen Welt das Evangelium Jesu Christi und der Reichtum seiner Gnaden 
verkiindigt, ausgebreitet, und gepredigt werde." 

|| B 368d, 373d. 

If B 380; see also the whole tract, Ein kurzer Bericht von der TVeise des Cate- 
chismi, by Val. Krautwald. 

** Cf. A 28d: "Also muss man auch bald wenn einem ein streitiger Punkt wird 
vorgeworfen, zur Bibel laufen, das Vorderste und das Hinderste (und nicht 
allein den blossen Spruch) dabei wohl besichtigen, bedenken, und ansehen, so 
wird man es oft viel anders finden als es sich mancher lasst einbilden." Cf. C 
77d. 

ft His works abound in expositions of biblical passages. His exegesis is, to be 
sure, influenced by the allegorical tendencies of the time, but it fairly attains 
the average level of sobriety and moderation. And however difficult it may be 
for us to harmonize some of his extreme utterances as to the inner and outer 
Word, the fact must never be lost sight of that after all he gets his "theology" 
from the same book as his opponents. 

Jt It is manifestly a perversion when Kurtz (Kirchengeschichte, 9. Aufl., II, p. 
150) declares "he elevated over the external Word of God in the Scriptures the 
inner Word of the Spirit of God in man." 



21 

pressly denies that he wished to have Scripture conformed to his 
faith, rather than have his faith conformed to the Scriptures. To 
be sure he often speaks slightingly of the humanistic culture of his 
day. But the secret of his attitude toward the Bible is to be found 
in his conviction that the book was being radically misunderstood 
by his opponents because of their lack of true faith. Philosophia, 
Frau Hulda, Vernunft, Dialectica, Rhetorica, and Grammatica 
were wresting the Scriptures to the Church's destruction.* The 
prime requisite, therefore, is to be taught of God.f To this end 
the Spirit must illuminate and sanctify the reader's mind. For 
the oral Word is not enough. £ Preaching may reach the ear 
without touching the heart. § The external Word is not a media- 
tor of salvation, || but when rightly, i.e., spiritually understood, 
it is a source of the real knowledge of Christ, which is the one 
thing needful. One passage may serve to give the contents of 
many: "Accordingly the Gospel of Christ is also spoken of, 
preached, written, and understood in such a double manner (al- 
though before God there is only one Gospel, just as there is only 
one Christ), namely, according to the letter and according to the 
Spirit. At one time the Scripture speaks of the Gospel according 
to the external service; at another, according to the inner mystery 
and divine essence; or according to history and according to the 
power of God. The Gospel according to history, or according to 
the [external] service, and outside of us, is the discourse or out- 
ward sermon concerning Christ, given or heard by the servant or 
preacher, without the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, only in the 
letter, and grasped by human reason and with practice and dili- 
gence fastened in the memory, without any renewing or fructifying 
of the heart. This is not as yet the true Gospel, indeed scarcely 
a picture, copy, shadow, or evidence of the true living Gospel of 

* Of the many passages dealing with his distrust of reason, see e.g., A 234cd, 
257, 438, 515, 828, B 294, 446, C 117, 252, 728, C 1016, D 159, 874. 

f See the treatise, Vom Unterschied der Schriftgelehrten und Gottesgelehrten ; 
was auch Schriftgelehrte und Gottesgelehrte heissen. Schenkel, Das Wesen, etc., 
Ill, 98, not inaptly declares : ' ' Gelehrte und Verkehrte sind ihm sinnverwandt. ' ' 

% B 349c, C 235b, 535c. 

§ C 487 sq. shows how Luther himself had admitted this, but later with his 
adherents had relapsed from this position. 

|| A 765. This however does not mean, as Dr. Hodge (Syst. Theology, I, 82) 
interprets Schwenckf eld's view of the Bible, that ' ' the Scriptures are not, even 
instrumentally, the source of the divine life." Logically indeed Schwenckf eld 
was bound to come to this conclusion. But it was characteristic of him to 
shrink from the extremes to which the strict logic of his system would have 
driven him. The ordinary doctrinal phrases can never with justice be applied 
to him. His thought is cast in a different mould. 



22 

Christ, no matter how skillful, learned, and eloquent the preacher 
may be. Therefore the Gospel of Christ, to speak strictly, is 
nothing other than the joyful, comforting good news of redemp- 
tion and eternal salvation, which the angel of the great council, 
Jesus Christ, brings through the Holy Spirit to an afflicted heart, 
which he first punishes for sin, and calls to repentance, and to 
which he then proclaims the divine peace purchased by his blood, ' ' 
etc.* 

But of course the decisive question is not whether the ' ' external 
Word" needs the accompaniment of the "inner Word" or not, 
but rather whether or not the latter may dispense with the former. 
Schwenckfeld's opponents, it is plain from his defensive attitude, 
accused him of rejecting the Scriptures. But it is equally clear 
that his assertion of the need of a spiritual understanding of the 
Word neither exhausts the a priori possibilities of the case nor con- 
stitutes a complete statement of the actual facts. The specific 
question must be answered, Is there any spiritual knowledge pos- 
sible apart from the written Word? 

The resemblance in this particular between Schwenckfeld and 
the Quakers is too obvious not to have been a subject for frequent 
comment. Barclay,! indeed, maintains that the teaching of 
Schwenckfeld and Fox was identical on three important points: 
first as to the "Inward Light, Life and Word"; secondly as to 
"Immediate Revelation"; and lastly as to the inability of any 
external bodily act to convey a spiritual reality to the soul. But 
neither is there any historical connection traceable between 
Schwenckfeld and the Friends, nor can there be said to be anj^hing 
more than a general correspondence and similarity between their 
ideas; both represent more or less extreme reactions against ecclesi- 
asticism, sacerdotalism, and sacramentarianism. As against the 
orthodox Quakers, Schwenckfeld taught a peculiar Christology 
which gives his whole system a different complexion; and as 
against the heterodox Quakers he held a far more moderate 
position concerning the nature, purpose and extent of the Inner 
Light. Now and then, indeed, he uses the language of the most 
radical spiritualists. Especially does this seem to be the case 
when statements are divorced from their contexts. The following 
is a characteristic negation: "It is here evident, therefore, that 
the true saving knowledge of God the Father and his Son Jesus 
Christ comes from no other source than a gracious divine revela- 
tion That is, that the Son of God, Christ, can be rightly 

* D 331b. Cf. A 687-689. 

f The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, p. 237 sqq. 



23 

known neither through human reason, nor through Scripture, 
nor out of any external thing."* It is well known, moreover, how 
strenuously he insisted that his unique interpretation of the words 
"this is my body" was due to special revelation.f This was one 
of the specific charges brought against him by Capito and Blaurer 
during his sojourn in southern Germany .J But what after all is 
his doctrine of "revelation"? The context of the passage last 
quoted is too important to leave unnoticed: "That is, that the 
Son of God, Christ, can be rightly known neither through human 
reason, nor through Scripture, nor out of any external thing, 
although the Holy Scriptures and the created things bear witness 
to him."§ In fact the "light" so highly prized is naught but 
what the Apostle Paul prays may be given his Ephesian readers, 
"the spirit of wisdom and revelation" in the knowledge of Christ. || 
" That is what the Lord Christ means by hearing and learning the 
Word of the Father and coming to Christ, and as he says, 'they 
shall all be taught of God.' This some incorrectly refer to the 
Scriptures; they dislike also the word revelation, regarding it 
indeed as a dream, a fancy, a fanatical excess, although hi very 
truth.it is the living doctrine of God from His Spirit in the believing 
heart. "^f The revelation of spiritual truth, therefore, comes not 
from the natural man's interpretation of the Scriptures but only 
from the real Word Christ himself, through his Spirit operating 
now with and now without the letter of the Scriptures or any exter- 
nal thing. Thus was left open, to be sure, a way of retreating, if 
need were, to the extremes of mere subjectivism. But the practical 
issues of the day made him retain a strong hold upon the sacred 
text: the spiritual as distinguished from the literal interpretation 
of the Scriptures is the heart and core of his doctrine concerning 
'' revelations" to the individual Christian. He was opposed to 
Luther's idea that the Spirit never operates savingly except through 
the Word, and that the verbum itself is illustrans, i.e., that the 
Scriptures contain within themselves a supernatural and divine 
power, so that then efficacy is independent of the special accom- 
paniment of the Spirit.** But that he did not quite reproduce the 

* A 427d. 

t More generally the term used is "Offenbarung"; but occasionally we find 
"gnadige Heimsuching. " 

J See Heyd's article, "Blaurer, Sclmepf, Schwenckfeld, " in the Tubinger 
Zeitschrift fur Theologie, 1S38, H. 4, pp. 29, 35. 

§ A 427d. || A 428a. If A 428a. 

** Hering, Die Mystik Luthers, p. 45, correctly expresses Luther's view as fol- 
lows: "Das Grundthema seiner Schriftauslegung: das Wort ist Geist, ist von 
dem Zusatz begleitet zu denken, dass Geist im Wort ist." 



2-1 

views of the great body of Christians of all ages, but allowed him- 
self to reveal a bias, logically indeed not without warrant in the 
position of his chief opponents, yet practically objectionable, 
against the letter of Scripture, is due not only to the polemic 
interest that dominated his work but also and primarily to the 
necessities of his system of thought. Wherever the practical 
problems of his situation claim his chief attention, however, the 
decisive authority of the Bible is freely conceded. "Thus do 
we conclude our admonition concerning the true and spiritual 
knowledge of Christ, which also is the sole criterion (basis et norma) 
by which to know and judge all manner of doctrines, opinions, 
errors and sects. Nor do we know any better or more convenient 
way for the promotion, reformation or improvement of the Chris- 
tian religion and doctrine than the true knowledge of Christ, which 
must be secured, not only out of Scripture but rather out of the 
gracious gift of the Father's revelation, yet in such wise that it will 
always agree or harmonize with the testimony of Scripture."* The 
Spirit therefore works when and where and how he pleases. But 
the Scriptures are his product, and therefore furnish a faithful 
criterion for ascertaining and estimating all his revealing activities. 
When rightly used they simply point to Christ. t They recede in 
importance behind the manifestations of the subjective religious 
life produced by the immediate operation of the Spirit upon the 
heart. But Schwenckfeld, in spite of his strong dislike of the term 
Gnadenmittel, still concedes the serviceableness of the Scriptures in 
pointing the enlightened reader to the real Word of God, the Son 
himself. The blessings of the Gospel are communicated by the 
Spirit operating without means upon the heart: the Scriptures are 
no mediators of salvation. But none the less, when rightly inter- 
preted, the inspired documents fulfill to all intents and purposes 
the function of means of grace in any but the strictly Lutheran 
acceptation of the term. "For although God the Almighty him- 
self teaches his disciples inwardly through Christ in the Holy Spirit 
the pure divine truth, he has nevertheless appointed for them 
external teachers and learning also, such as servants of the Word 
of God, preachers, teachers, expositors of the Holy Scriptures, etc., 
whom God the Lord calls, sends, and through his Spirit urges to 
promote his divine doings among his people, whose service he also 

* ' ' Doch so dass es alle Wege mit der Schrift Zeugnis stimme oder iibereintrage" 
(D 62b). 

t D 868cd (in margin) : "Die heilige Schrift weiset von sich und iiber sich zum 
Arzt Christo, der allein Gesundheit und Leben giebt." "Die H. Schrift zeugt 
vora Arzte und der Kraft seiner Arztnei, sie ists aber nicht selbst." Cf. C 1010. 



blesses, in order that it may serve in the grace of God for the edifica- 
tion of Christians in Christ and their soul's salvation."* 

The same unstable equilibrium is to be seen n Schwenckfeld's 
attitude toward the Church as an institution for the furtherance 
of the religious life. We have seen how little regard or capacity 
he had for organization, how his strongly anti-ecclesiastical spiiit 
voiced itself in declarations which, followed to their logical conclu- 
sion, would leave no place whatever for the external Church. 
Against this very charge of abolishing the ministerial office and 
the public worship of the sanctuary he had frequently to defend 
himself, t It is plain, however, that the criticism is only to a cer- 
tain extent justifiable. He himself sets forth his position as fol- 
lows: "I object to no one's hearing sermons as opportunity offers; 
nor do I (as the Baptists do) bind the conscience in this matter as 
if it were sin; nor do I advise the endurance of exile. I therefore in 
these days of dispersion let every one abide in his freedom." J 
Here, as in the doctrine of the Word, Schwenckfeld distinguished 
between the internal and the external Church. § The latter, the 
true Church of God, is made up of the company of the real believers. 
Their head is Christ. He rules and builds them up.|| Their salva- 
tion is not bound to any external means or institution as an indis- 
pensable condition for its bestowal.^ But on the other hand there 
are not wanting indications that Schwenckfeld was unwilling to go 
the whole length of the Anabaptist idealization of the historic 
Church. Even liturgical ceremonies have a helpful mission, pro- 

* D 893d. 

t Melanchthon, under date of October 18, 1535, wrote as follows to Frecht: 
"De Schwenkfeldio et Franco, Chronicorum scriptore, placet mini judicium 
tuum. Nam et ego utrumque severe coercendum esse judico, etsi Schwenkf eldium 
stultum magis quam improbum esse arbitror; sed tamen hypocrisis apud vulgus 
nocet et habethoc [hie], ut ex CEcolampadio audire memini, nullam ecclesise 
formam, hoc est, nulla- ministeria probat .... Ego vero omnes,. qui in nostris 
ecclesiis de ministeriis publicis parum honorifice sentiunt dignos odio esse censeo ' ' 
(Corpus Ref., ed. Bretschneider, II, col. 955). 

t C 894c. 

§ "Nun ist das Wortlein Kirche cequivocum, das ist, dass man von der Kirche so 
wohl als vom Glauben oder Glaubigen auf zweierlei Weisepflegt zureden: einmal 
nach dem Grunde der Wahrheit wie es vor Gott damit steht, wie die Kirche aus 
Christo in seinem Reiche wird erbaut und vereinigt, wie er sie regiert und erhalt 
im Reiche der Gnaden .... Zum andern mal redet man von der Kirche Christi 
nach ihrer Versammlung im Dienste der Apostel und anderer Diener des heiligen 
Geistes welche von Christo dem Himmelkonig, seinem Volke zu dienen, und in 
der Erbauung seines Leibes Handreichung zu thun bestellt werden." B 654bd; 
cf . D 10-15, Von der christlichen Kirche, 

|| A 870b, 97a. 

If It is interesting to note that Schwenckfeld taught that there were undoubt- 
edly Christians even among the Turks of that day. A 782 sq. 



26 

vided only that no trust be placed in them.* Preaching is there- 
fore of cardinal importance, even if it is not to be identified with 
the power of Christ, but only to be regarded as pointing toward 
him and thereby serving him. 7 Even pictures, if not worshiped, 
may be used with advantage. J 

It must, of course, be admitted that Schwenckfeld had not a 
sufficiently clear and consistent view as to the need of ecclesiastical 
organization. He could, in perfect harmony with his rigoristic 
and puritanic requirements, have insisted upon a fair degree of or- 
ganization under leaders of his own choosing. Few, however, will 
fail to approve his views so far as their criticism of the historical 
situation is concerned. § He could not, with his rich spiritual ex- 
perience, rest content with a Csesaro-papal ecclesiasticism which 
seemed to endanger the whole Protestant cause, which in large 
measure destroyed the new-born spirit of religious freedom by per- 
mitting the use of the sword even in matters of such subordinate 
importance as the observance of ceremonial rites. || He left the ex- 
isting Chinches not from choice but from necessity : they did not in 
any satisfactory measure embody his ideals. But to organize his 
followers according to his own principles he had neither the wish 
nor the ability. And thus his theory of the Church reached no ad- 
vanced stage of development. His views oscillated between an 
apparently absolute denial of the need and advantage of an external 
institution and the generous recognition of the mission of the de 

* A 846c: "Also mochte ich audi von Ceremonien sagen welche ausserlicher 
Gottesdienst oder Kircheniibungen heissen, deren viel nur wohl und niitzlich 
mbgen gebraucht werden. Ich achte es auch nicht dafiir, dass irgend ein Christ 
so vermessen sein kann, dass er alle Ceremonien (ob man wohl kein Vertrauen drein 
setzen noch die Seligkeit drin soil suchen) ohne Unterschied wolle verwerfen. 
Sonst wiirde er das Predigtamt, und was in der Kirche ausserlich gehandelt wird, 
auch mussen verwerfen." Cf. A 700a, 791b. 

t C 997bc. t A 846a. 

§ See the impartial judgment of Erbkam, Geschichte der prot. Sekten, p. 435 sq. 

|| B 655d: "Deshalb denn die Definition und Beschreibung der Kirchen, wie 
sie in der Confession [sc. Augustana] gestellt .... billig sollte gebessert werden ; 
damit wir Gott den Herrn und seine "Werke nicht abermals an uns unnutze 
Knechte noch an den Papst und Bischof aufs Neue zwingen, heften oder anbinden, 
sondern den Gang der Gnaden Christi und seines Geistes Lehramt, der die Herzen 
lehret und geistet wo er will, desgleichen die Erbauung des Leibes Christi uberail 
frei im Geiste und unangebunden stehen lassen. Wie den auch die hi. Christliche 
Kirche nicht als eine andere Polizei an dies oder jenes Land eingezaunt, 
weder an Rom, Wittenberg, Zurich, Genf, Mahren, noch anderswo, weder an 
Zeit, Personen, noch an etwas Ausserliches, ja weder an Prediger, Predigt, oder 
Sacrament gebunden, sondern rnit ihren Gliedern allenthalben durch die ganze 
Welt, wo glaubige Christen sind, ist ausgebreitet. " On the functions of magis- 
trates concerning the Church, see A 79 sqq., 401 sqq., el passim. Cf. also Schenkel, 
Das Wesen des Prot., Ill, 3S2-386. 



'27 

facto organizations, provided only they inculcated a spiritual knowl- 
edge of the Head of the Church * 

This survey of Schwenckfeld's doctrine of the Word and the 
Church will help us to secure a just estimate of his view of the 
piupose of the sacraments. We are prepared to find his funda- 
mental dualism asserting itself also in this branch of his system. 
"For to a complete sacrament two things are necessary, an inner 
and spiritual element and an outer, bodily element. "f The sacra- 
ments, therefore, are profound mysteries, and not merely external 
ceremonies. % They are more than the mere addition of the outer 
Word to the given elements. § The prime requisite here too, 
therefore, is precisely that which has been so often emphasized, the 
"judgment of the spiritual man/' the correct interpretation of 
the Scriptures. It is this lack of spiritual insight that is the cause 
of all error concerning the sacraments. || For this very reason the 
eucharist should continually be discussed, upon the biblical basis, 
in order that the true view may be obtained.^ More must be made, 
in any event, of the spiritual significance of the ordinances.** The 
failure of his opponents to do this convicts them of being the real 
despisers of the sacraments. ff On the other hand, he strongly pro- 
tests against the justice of this charge so frequently made against 
him.J X It is not with the sacraments, but with the misuse of them, 
that he finds fault. It was his conviction that the Church was 
misinterpreting these sacred rites that led him to advocate the 
Stillstand in the case of the Supper, and the corresponding custom 
of substituting for sacramental baptism only a consecratory 

* See the (LVI) Fragen von der christlichen Kirche, which are really so many 
attacks upon the worldly ecclesiasticism of the day, and so many defenses of his 
own position between the Romanist and Anabaptist extremes. 

t B, Part I, p. 140d. 

$ A, p. Xld. Cf. B, Part I, p. 85cd: "Drum wenn man von Sacramenten 
Christi und seiner christlichen Kirche redet, so redet man vornehmlich von einem 
Geheimnis und gottlich offenbarten Handel, darin die christglaubige Seele ist 
und wird gereinigt, erleuchtet, wiedergeboren und von Stinden abgewaschen, 
durch das Bad des Wassers im Worte, als im Sacrament der Tauf e ; oder darinnen 
sie wird gespeiset, getrankt, und gesiittigt mit dem Leib und Blut J. Christi, 
dadurch sie wird im gottlichen Leben erhalten und darinnen immer ferner auf- 
wachsen, als im Sacrament des Nachtmals." 

§ Cf. A 505a, 855c. || B, Part I, 101b. If A 342d, 393a-c. 

** A 492c. ft A, pp. Xd, XIa. 

Xt D 15d: "Von den heiligen Sacramenten .... glaube ich alles was die 
heilige Schrift sagt und wie sie vom Herrn Christo gelehrt und fur die christ- 
glaubigen eingesetzt, auch von lieben Aposteln und der christlichen Kirche nach 
dem Befeld des Herrn sind gebraucht worden und noch in der versammelten 
Gemeinde Gottes also gebraucht und verstanden sollen werden." Cf. I> 
21 sq., 544, 973, C 283b, 687d, 730d, B 104c, A 331, 394, etc. 



28 

prayer. He takes his stand once more upon the sole mediatorship 
of Christ* 

The general principles just mentioned we find exemplified in the 
statements concerning baptism. The outer rite must be carefully 
distinguished from the inner reality. "But we must remember 
that in the complete sacrament of the baptism of Christ two things 
are present, namely, an external and an internal one; the elemental 
water and the water of divine grace which purifies the conscience. "t 
The external water cannot cleanse. "Let them know in the first 
place that the washing away of sins does not belong to the external 
baptism. Then let them be assured that no external thing, wash- 
ing or water, can reach or remove sin. In the third place, they do 
not permit Christ in himself and by himself to be a perfect Saviour. 
It is therefore a grave wrong to the work of Christ and his Spirit 
if one ascribes or concedes to the water or other created things in 
the work of salvation something that belongs to Christ alone." X 

The primary and essential element in baptism, therefore, is the 
inner grace, the bestowal of which is absolutely independent of the 



* C 448d : ' ' Das ihr begehret zu wissen, wie ihr es richten sollt, dass Nichts 
ausserliches das Herz erreiche, das sollt ihr richten auf den Handel unserer 
Gerecht- und Seligwerdung, namlich das Herz zu bekehren, zu reinigen und 
erneuern, denn wer vermag solches denn allein Gott und Christus im heiligen 
Geiste? Das fleischliche Herz wird wohl oft durch ausserliche Dinge bewegt zu 
Freuden und Traurigkeit ; es wird aber drum durch ausserliche Dinge nicht selig 
noch umgekehrt. Christus ist der Erneuerer des Herzen; er allein vermag die 
Siinde draus zu nehmen und seine Gnade darein zu geben." Cf. A 597 sqq., 780, 
C 480c, 619, D 440, 468ab, 738. For extended discussions of what he regarded 
as an unwarranted emphasis upon the "external" sacraments, see C 1015-1021, 
and especially the first two letters in Part I of B (pp. 10-146), Vom Grund und 
Ursach des Irrtums und Spans im Arlikel vom Sacrament des Herrn Nachtmals 
and Vom Verstande, Gebrauch, und Wiirdigkeit der Sacramente Christi. The 
Bekenntnis und Rechenschaft von den Hauptpuncten des christlichen Glaubens 
(D pp. 1-62) is a precis of his whole system. 

t A 195bc. 

% A 32cd. Cf. A 378cd, 497cd, C 397, 43Sb, 520a, and many other passages in 
all of the folios. To be sure Luther had taken pains to bring the word of com- 
mandment (Matt, xxviii. 19) into connection with the water of baptism: "Was- 
ser thut's freilich nicht, sondern das Wort Gottes so mit und bei dem Wasser ist 
und der Glaube so solchem Worte Gottes im Wasser trauet; denn ohne Wort 
Gottes ist das Wasser schlecht Wasser und keine Taufe" {Der kleine Catechismus, 
Part IV, in Schaff s Creeds, III, p. 86). None the less, especially in the matter 
of infant baptism, Luther reopened the way for the magical efficiency of the 
ex opere operato theory of the sacrament. The consecrated water itself, in fact, 
possessed a divine potency. It was heavenly, holy, durchgottet. Cf . Schenkel, I.e., 
I, 448 sq. ; Thimme, I.e., S9S; Hering, I.e., p. 287 sq., and Harnack, Dogmeng. 
Ill 3 , 792. 



29 

external rite.* The blood of Christ is the only sprinkling that 
removes the defilements of sin,f or rather — the reason for this 
characteristic emphasis upon the unity and totality of Christ's 
person will appear later — Christ himself is the bath of regenera- 
tion 4 

Precisely so does the right understanding of the eucharist neces- 
sitate a sharp distinction between the outer signs and the inner 
realities, between the external and the internal sacrament. The 
parallelism in this respect between the Supper and Baptism is 
complete. "As I have hitherto spoken of two kinds of water 
in the Christian sacrament of baptism, so I find in the complete 
sacramental transaction of the Lord's Supper two different kinds 
of bread, or food, and drink: namely, a spiritual, divine, 
heavenly bread, food, and drink, which is the body of Christ 
given for us and his sacred blood shed for the forgiveness of sins; 
and a bodily and sacramental bread and drink, which the Lord 
Jesus before his departure commanded his disciples to break, 
to eat, and to drink, in remembrance of him."§ The former is 
then identified, as will have been anticipated, with Christ the Son; 
it is the bread which is the Lord. The latter is only the ' ' bread of 
the Lord. ' ' Once more, therefore, the whole question turns upon 
the correct, that is the ' ' spiritual, ' ' understanding of the Scriptures. 
Once more Schwenckfeld can refute the charge that he makes light 
of the New Testament sacraments. "In the same way I request, 
wish, and desire that the holy sacrament of the body and blood of 
Christ be observed by the believing Christians according to the 
institution, intention, and will of the Lord, with a right understand- 
ing, knowledge, and faith, also with a due examination and with the 
due accompaniments, in a Christian, devout, and reverent manner, 
and that it be not misused to condemnation through ignorance and 
superstition. Whether this means rejecting the service of the 
Word of God and despising the holy sacrament .... because I 
distinguish between these things and the Word which is spirit and 

* Cf. Schwenckfeld's remarks about the possibility and the need of an oft- 
repeated "spiritual feet washing." "Die Fiisse der Christglaubigen werden 
immer gewaschen rait dem reinen Wasser, das ohne Unterlass von dem Leibe 
Christi fiiesst" (A 209d). Again (C 207a), "Warum treiben sie"— he is speak- 
ing of the Lutherans — "nicht auch so fest aufs Fiisswaschen? welches der Herr 
eben so wohl als das Werk ihm nachzuthun hat bei'ohlen: 'So ich euer Meister und 
Herr euch die Fiisse gewaschen,' " etc. That is, if the Lutherans take this cere- 
mony spiritually, why should not the sacraments also be so understood? 

t A 13d, D 147 285b. 

J A 31cd; cf. B, Part I, 121d. 

§ D 18ab. 



30 

life, 1 will now submit to the Christian Church, your grace, and all 
pious Christians."* 

But of course the really decisive question as to Schwenckfeld's 
conception of the purpose of the sacraments is still to be raised. 
His theoretical distinction, amounting in practice, as we have seen, 
to a virtual separation between the outer transaction and the 
inner reality in the Supper, satisfied neither the Romanists and 
Lutherans on the one hand nor the Zwinglians and Anabaptists on 
the other. Indeed, much of the persecuted man's literary activity 
was due to his desire to remove the misapprehensions concerning 
his views under which he was sure his opponents were laboring. 
But in spite of his efforts in this direction, it is still to be regretted 
that the inner nexus of his sacramentarianism has not been more 
clearly set forth. For this obviously is the crux of the whole prob- 
lem : are these outer and inner circles of reality truly concentric, or 
do they lie in such remote planes that all possibility of a causal 
connection between them is cut off? Does this fundamental dual- 
ism result in an absolutely unmediated juxtaposition of altogether 
disparate elements? Is there at the most only a possible simul- 
taneity between the external and the internal transactions? "What 
sort of balance must be struck between Schwenckfeld's assertion 
that the sacraments are serviceable, yet are not means of grace? Is 
he thoroughly consistent with himself in denying the propriety of 
the term Gnadenmittel in any and every sense? 

How much injustice in this regard has sometimes been done to 
the reformer will appear from our answer to these questions. It 
is difficult to present his views with perfect accuracy and fairness 
in any other than his own words. What he was bound by rigid 
self-consistency to say is one thing; what he actually said in con- 
formity with his philosophic and theological presuppositions, on 
the one hand, and under the influence of the conditions of his situa- 
tion, on the .other, is quite another thing. 

The external rites — on at least this point there can be no doubt — 
are signs and symbols of the inner reality, of the truth, the essence, 
the res or materia of the sacraments. This fact, it may be assumed, 
has become plain in the course of the discussion. There are those 
indeed who regard this statement as the only proper because the 
perfectly exhaustive one.f There can be no doubt that it is the 

*D545a. 

t For example, Hahn, Schwenchjeldvi Sententia, etc., p. 60, n. 1 : "Itaque 
acramentis externis Schwenckfcldius putavit non nisi adumbrari res divinas, 
quas Christus omnibus fidem habentibus quovis tempore distribuit." 



31 

mould into which Schwenckfeld most frequently cast his reflections 
on the teleology of the sacraments. With what sharpness of vision 
he grasped this aspect of the problem will appear from a citation 
of several of the most important deliverances. "All external 
things are only representations which portray or point and lead to 
the eternal divine truth which is dispensed through the custodian 
of the holy blessings, through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. God is 
therefore not concerned about external things, but about that which 
is represented to the believer by means of the external thing and 
which is distributed through Christ in the Holy Spirit."* Again, 
"the sacraments are indeed spiritual or, if the term be rightly 
understood, holy, sacramental signs, because they point to holy, 
spiritual things and signify them. But they cannot impart them, 
since they have no spiritual, divine power in themselves. "f One 
of the clearest statements on this phase of the subject is the follow- 
ing: "All external things, the sacrament and other things, were 
instituted by Christ for our sakes, in order that his great benefits 
and his work in the believing heart may be known and remembered, 
and that the great riches of the grace of God which he has caused 
to be manifested to all men in Christ may be known, praised, and 
magnified in all the world. "% 

The external rite, therefore, has at least the function of directing 
the thought of the participants to Christ, the sole source of saving 
grace. But is there beyond this any necessary sequence between 
the outward ceremonial and the bestowal of an inner sacramental 
blessing? 

It is plain that some of the quotations just made leave absolutely 
no room for an affirmative answer to this question. The unequiv- 
ocal declarations about the sole mediatorship of Christ must be 
allowed to retain their force undiminished. That anything in the 
way of a magical efficiency of the Gnadenmittel was to him an un- 
speakable absurdity; that salvation can, as a matter of fact, be 
conferred without any means whatsoever by an immediate opera- 
tion of the Spirit upon the heart; that the blessings conveyed, ac 
cording to the theories of his opponents, by the sacraments may 
be daily granted even to those who do not attend to the outward 
rites; and that the main current of Schwenckf eld's thought tends 
to sweep away from the sphere of grace every sensuous, external 
or "creaturely" object, — these propositions may be regarded as 
established theses. But we must not prejudge the case by sup- 

*A201d. tA749d;cf.A789c. tC580d. 



closing that he has reduced his views to a perfectly consistent, 
unitary system. Granted, for instance, that the Spirit never 
works through external things: it might still be asked, whether or 
not he ever works in them or with them? There can be no doubt 
that Schwenckfeld, in his strong desire to defend himself against 
his adversaries by trying to conserve the objective or theological 
content of the sacraments, did at times approach the Reformed 
doctrine of the means of grace in the narrowest and strictest sense 
of the term. The evidence, to be sure, is not abundant. The 
language used expresses rather the feeling of a conservative dis- 
position than the settled conviction of a severely logical mind. 
The principle is fairly established, however, that the blessings of 
salvation are actually bestowed in the right use of the sacraments. 
' ' This requires the right understanding and use of the sacraments 
of Christ, that is the knowledge of Christ according to the Spirit 
and the dispensation of the mysteries of God in the believing soul, it 
being the special office of the Holy Spirit to distribute the blessings 
acquired by Christ unto all believers in the use of his sacra- 
ments (beim Brauche seiner Sacramente) , likewise before and with- 
out the use of them."* To be sure, even here the place of empha- 
sis in the sentence is reserved for the thought that the sacraments 
are by no means necessary. Likewise characteristic is the differ- 
ence in the prepositions in the phrases "durch Christum" and 
' ' beim Brauche seiner Sacramente. ' ' But the manifest coordina- 
tion of the two methods of bestowing grace, that "with the use 
of the sacraments ' ' and that ' ' before or without them, ' ' shows that 
in some real sense external things may mediate grace. In another 
passage we have not only the preposition bei but also in used. 
"But if it is said that such grace comes through the external 
thing, or that the external thing adds something in the form of an 
instrument, or that the grace cannot be poured in or given without 
the external thing, or that it must follow the latter, this is all pal- 
pable error. For, in short, the grace of God without and in the 
external thing (ohne und beim Ausserlicheri) alone effects salvation, 
in both the sacraments and other spiritual transactions. "f When, 
therefore, the sacrament is truly used, it "brings grace along with 
itself."i 

* B, Part I, 85b. f B, Part I, 97d. 

J "Dass aber die Sacramente Christi, wo sie recht verstanden und gebraucht 
werden, Gnade mit sick bringen ist wohl aus dem Exempel abzunehmen, so man 
bedenkt, wenn ein Christgliiubiger in der christlichen Kircbe wird getauft und 
ihm alle Wohlthat Christi wird vorgehalten werden, dass er sich ganz und gar 
Gotte aufopfert," etc. Ibid. ; cf. B 15d, where it is said that the consecrated 
bread ' 'ought to serve the mystery of feeding upon the body and blood of Christ." 



33 

These citations, then, must be taken as an authentic commentary 
on the numerous passages in Schwenckfeld that protest against 
the Gnadenmittel. The common representation, that he taught 
"a plan of salvation without the means of grace,"* must be 
understood in the light of the fact that the sacraments when rightly 
used may and really do convey grace.f Whether or not they may 
be called "means of grace" will depend, therefore, upon whose 
definition of the term we employ. Romanists and Lutherans will 
alike answer in the negative.! But in a sense approximating that 
of the Reformed Church, Schwenckfeld may fairly be said, in spite of 
his protests, to have ' ' means of grace. ' ' His theory of the Supper, 
as will appear when we discuss the question of the mode of Christ's 
presence, is distinctively higher than that of Zwingli.§ There is, 

* So, e.g., Weiser, in his article on "Casper Schwenckfeld and the Schwenk- 
feldians," in the Mercersburg Review, July, 1870, p. 150. 

t The common representation is, of course, essentially correct, inasmuch as it 
summarizes the content and also the spirit of the great bulk of passages dealing 
with the subject. But by an occasional inconsistency Schwenckfeld permitted 
himself to speak, as we have seen, in terms that compromised the rigor of his 
system with affection for the time-honored institutions of the Church. His pre- 
suppositions forbade his making the sacraments means of grace; but the conten- 
tions of his adversaries on the right as well as his dissatisfaction with the fanatics 
on the left, above all the overmastering force of the same words that held Luther 
captive — the hoc est corpus meum — made him sacrifice something of his logic, or, 
to use more customary but less intelligible language, his "mystical feeling," 
against external ecclesiasticism. 

The practical question concerning the use of the sacraments has of late become 
acute in the history of the American Schwenckf elders. The younger and more 
progressive ministers especially are inclined to put a lax construction upon 
Schwenckf eld's polemic against the "external" rite: they admit that the ex- 
igencies of debate betrayed him into ill-balanced assertions, but they are likewise 
strong in their insistence that according to him the sacraments when rightly 
used are "means of grace." 

J Dollinger, Die Reformation, I, 239 sq., declares that external baptism accord- 
ing to Schwenckfeld was only an outer reminder and confession of the inwardly 
received grace ; and that the external Supper is only a picture of the inward eat- 
ing. Kurtz (Kirchengeschichte, 9. Aufl., II, p. 150) says Schwenckfeld's doc- 
trine of the Supper is mere symbolism, a charge which the reformer times without 
number explicitly denied. 

§ Zwingli's statements on the eucharistic controversy present, as is well known, 
marked contrasts. When governed by polemic zeal against the Romanists and 
Lutherans he seems to deny that the Supper is in any sense a means of grace. Cf . 
his Fidei Ratio, in Niemeyer's Collectio Confessionum, p. 24: "Credo, imo scio 
omnia sacramenta tarn abesse ut gratia conferant, ut ne adferant quidem aut 
dispensent." The positive thought he most emphasizes is that the Supper is 
"nihil aliud quam commemoratio, qua ii, qui se Christi morte et sanguine firmiter 
credunt patri reconciliatos esse, hance vitalem mortem annunciant, hoc est, 
laudant, gratulantur, et predicant" (De vera et falsa Religione, Opera, ed. Schuler 
and Schulthess, III, p. 263). But it must be remembered that he at times 
taught that Christ is truly present in the Supper, and that his body is truly eaten 
by the believing heart. See p. 49. 



34 

in fact, so close a resemblance to the Calvinistic doctrine that, with 
all allowance for essential differences, the term ' ' means of grace ' ' 
may be applied with almost as much propriety in the one case as 
in the other. Schwenckfeld and Calvin, in carrying beyond the 
limits of the Lutheran movement the basal distinction between 
Romanism and Protestantism, that pertaining to the way in which 
the soul's relation to God is mediated,* emphasized the possibility 
and reality of the direct operation of God upon the religious sub- 
ject. They furthermore agreed in making the whole Christ the 
res or materia of the sacrament, and in making the work of the 
Spirit a distinguishing feature of their doctrine of the "means of 
grace," thus aiming to do justice to the objective content of the 
sacraments as taught by Romanist and Lutheran and the subjective 
aspects championed by the Zwinglians. Above all, in their spiritual 
view of the whole process of salvation, in which the sacraments 
conveyed no unique grace not otherwise obtainable, faith was em- 
phasized as the indispensable condition for securing a dialectic and 
causal connection between the outer transaction and the inner effect. 
To be sure, Calvin succeeded in obtaining a far more satisfactory 
because intimate nexus between the spiritual and the corporeal, 
the divine and the human elements of the sacramental act, and 
it was especially his clear recognition of the sealing character 
of the ordinance that gave his views so speedy and complete a 
victory not only over those of his theological kinsman Zwingli, 
but also over those extremists like Schwenckfeld who belonged to 
a more remotely related spiritualistic school, f 

We are bound, therefore, to ascertain more exactly the nature 
of Schwenckfeld's conception of faith. For it i^ obvious that it 
was by this bridge that he sought to span the chasm that lay be- 

* Cf Baur, Die Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit, III, 254. 

t Schwenckfeld never attained, and from his premises, as will appear, never 
could attain, the high vantage-ground from which Calvin could regard the sacra- 
ments as seals of the new covenant. Lutheran writers, indeed, are wont to say 
that Calvin himself was not warranted by his presuppositions in taking so "high" 
a view of baptism and the eucharist. See, e.g., Kahnis, Die Lehre vom Abend- 
mahl, p. 407 sq., and cf. Schenkel, I.e., I, 429 sq. The latter, however, admits 
that Calvin has given the best solution of the sacramental problem (ibid., and cf . 
p. XIX). But Schwenckfeld, as we shall find, was prevented by his conception 
of faith and his theory of the deification of the flesh of Christ, from securing any 
adequate view either of the work of the Spirit in the application of grace or of 
faith as the instrument of salvation. 

At times, to be sure, attempts were made to vindicate a sealing character for 
the sacraments. See the Catechism of the Schwenckfelder Werner in Arnold, 
Kirchen- und Kelzerhistorie (1740), Vol. I, Th. II, B. XVI, cap. XX, p. 853. But 
all such attempts really exceed the logical warrant of the premises of the system. 



35 

tween his desire to pres3rve the objective content of the sacraments 
and his determination to hold fast to what he regarded as the 
deepest essence of Protestantism, the sole mediatorship of Christ 
operating directly, that is without the use of any creaturely ob- 
jects, upon the believer's heart. It is only by securing an adequate 
grasp of his doctrine of faith that we shall succeed in doing justice to 
his otherwise altogether anomalous position between the Romanists 
and Lutherans on the one hand and the Zwinglians and Anabaptists 
on the other. Only so can we realize how, in his eagerness to pre- 
serve the choicest treasures of the new evangelical faith, he took so 
extreme a position against Rome that he found it impossible, save 
by an occasional felicitous inconsistency of thought, to regard the 
sacraments as anything more, in the actual life of the Church, than 
symbols or means of representing spiritual realities to the physical 
senses. Only so can we understand the logic of his oft-repeated 
statement that the external rites must follow, and not precede, the 
internal transactions.* Only so can we ascertain both the strength 
and the weakness of his sacramentarianism and estimate aright his 
contribution to the eucharistic controversy. 

It becomes necessary, therefore, to introduce that larger circle 
of thought that lies behind and everywhere colors the more su- 
perficial considerations thus far presented : to understand his view of 
faith we have to examine the philosophic presuppositions upon 
which he based not only his idea of the purpose of the sacraments 
but his whole conception of the nature of redemption. Concerned 
as he was for the rights of subjective religion, finding as he did in 
the spiritual knowledge of his Redeemer the only way unto eternal 
life, how did he conceive of the nexus of faith by which the soul 
is brought into contact with the supernatural source of grace in 
the real or inward sacrament? By the necessity of the case his 
conception of faith is influenced by his conception of Christ, and 
his Christology in turn is inseparably linked with his doctrine of 
the Supper. For him, as for all the participants in the eucharistic 
controversy, there were in reality two closely related and decisive 
questions: (1) What is the mode of the Lord's presence in the 
Supper? and (2) What benefits does faith receive through or, as 
Schwenckfeld would prefer to say, in the use of the sacrament?f 

* See e.g., A 513c, B 601b. 

t It was natural for the editor(s) of the fol. D to close the volume with 
Schwenckf eld's two doctrinal summaries, often separately published, Ein Kurzes 
Summarium von C. Schwenckfelds Glauben und Bekenntnis von Christo dem Sohne 
Gotles and his Kurzes Bekenntnis vom HI. Sacrament des Herrn Christi Nachtmals. 
On the necessary and close connection between the Supper and the nature of 



36 

The philosophic dualism underlying Schwenckfeld's system and 
revealing itself in his Christology posits a twofold activity on the 
part of God, that of creation and that of regeneration.* The sharp- 
est distinction is preserved between nature and grace. "The 
work of creation brings with it the presence of the power, might and 
strength of God, with which God creates, fills and preserves all 

things through his right hand, through his Word Christ 

Such presence is honorable to God, shows his majesty, power, 
knowledge and government, that he is a Lord of all things, but it 
is not specially comforting or salutary to the creatures."! In 
contrast with this creative activity, which reveals only the pres- 
ence of power, is the regenerating or gracious activity by which 
man becomes a partaker of the divine essence : ' ' the other work of 
God is the work of recreation, which God has exercised especially 
in the sphere of human life through his right hand, that is through 
Christ, upon the basis of the first work, and which he still exercises 
and dispenses in the Holy Spirit. And it brings with itself proesentiam 
gratice (that is the presence of grace) with which God is nigh unto 
all those who call upon him .... and through which God's right 
hand in the Holy Spirit cleanses, remakes and regenerates man, 
in order that God may live and abide in him, being apprehended 
by faith, and that man may become a partaker of his divine nature 
and essence; 2 Pet. 1, Heb. 3. Such presence is honorable to God, 
shows his mercy, friendliness and great love, and is salutary to the 
creature, a powerful comfort unto eternal life. "J Redemption is 
in fact nothing but a deliverance both from the dominion of sin 
and — what is really fundamental — from the very estate of crea- 
turehood. § But how, then, must he be constituted who is to effect 
so genuinely physical or substantial a transformation as that re- 
quired to make the sinful creature a participant in the divine life 
and essence? If the Mediator is to succeed in bringing man into 

Christ's person, cf. also D 30b, 82d, A 727 sqq. and the man}' passages in which 
he shows the relations of these views in the erroneous teachings of his opponents. 

* Baur (Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit) , Dorner {Lehre von der Person Christi), 
Hahn (Sententia) and Erbkam (Geschichte der prot. Sekten) have clearly appre- 
hended and more or less fully discussed the nature and importance of this far- 
reaching distinction. The reader is referred to these works for a more adequate 
treatment than we can here give of this aspect of the subject. 

t See the whole section in Sendbrief VI, entitled Von zweierlei Werk und Gegen- 
wartigkeit Gottes (C pp. 104-106). 

J Ibid., p. 10.5. 

§ It is Hahn's special merit to have established this point. See Ins disserta- 
tion, pp. 8, 21, 49 n. 3, 51 sqq. Hahn, however, underestimates the services ren- 
dered by Dorner and Baur in proving the central importance of the distinction 
between "Schopfung" and "Wiederschopfung." Cf. Baur, Theol. Jahrb., 
1848, pp. 512, 524, et passim. 



37 

harmony with God, in spite of the fact that creature and Creator 
are further removed from each other than heaven and earth, 
wherein lies the capacity of the God-man to accomplish this unique 
task? Obviously the traditional Anselmic view of the personal 
union between God and man in Jesus Christ is not adequate to the 
terms of Schwenckfeld's problem. For if, as we are told, sin per- 
tains to the very status of creaturehood, it is of course essential 
that the Saviour should in no sense be a creature — not even, 
Schwenckfeld insists, according to his human nature.* But, on the 
other hand, it is equally necessary that the Saviour should be truly 
man, that he should take upon himself the essence of our human 
nature. How, then, are the two requirements — that of perfect 
deity and that of perfect humanity apart from all creaturehood — 
to be realized in a single and unitary personality? 

Schwenckfeld's answer is highly ingenious, but necessarily unsat- 
isfactory; the primary . dualism of his system, the very terms in 
which the problem is stated, preclude any solution. Christ, we 
are told, was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and by reason of this 
supernatural generation he is said to belong to the order not of 
"created" but of "begotten" or "re-created" beings.f He is 
therefore truly divine, the Son of God, according to the very essence 
of his being. But he was at the same time born of the Virgin 
Mary ;\ from her he received his material, substantial body. § He is, 

* The passages against the ' ' Creaturisten ' ' — those who held that the word 
"creature" is applicable to Christ in any sense whatsoever — are innumerable. 
Schwenckfeld's contention, when once his philosophic dualism was taken seriously, 
had to influence his whole conception of the person of Christ and of the way of 
salvation. See, e.g., C 806b, 809d, 814a, 823c. 

f "Wiederschopfung," "Zeugen," " regeneratio " and "nliatio" are all 
practically synonymous. They denote a supernatural communication of grace, 
in other words of the divine essence itself, and may therefore be predicated of the 
sinless Christ's humanity as well as of the redeemed. It is needless to add that 
these terms have no reference to the eternal generation of the Son as the Second 
Person of the Trinity: the point of contact between the Redeemer and his people 
is to be sought not in the Mediator's divinity but in his non-creaturely humanity. 
We have here a characteristic specimen of Schwenckfeld's attempt to theologize 
on a strictly biblical basis; but into the familiar words of Scripture an entirely 
new content is poured. 

J More accurately — though the preposition "aus" is frequent enough — Christ 
was born "in her and of her," but "outof God" (B 281c, and in the margin). 

§ It is not the whole truth, therefore, when Hodge (Syst. Theol., I, 82) declares: 
' ' His body and soul were formed out of the substance of God, ' ' and that, according 
to Schwenckfeld, Christ did not have ' ' any material bod}'' or blood. ' ' Schwenck- 
feld had no sympathy with the views of Valentinus or Melchior Hoffmann 
(see D 426, B 163d, A 291, D 79d). He taught that Christ did have a real, mater- 
ial body in his humiliation, and that he even now, in his glorified or "deified" 
humanity, has flesh and bones. Cf. D 125d: "Ich glaube und bekenne dass 
Christus Jesus auch noch heute und ewig ein wahrer, ganzer Mensch mit Leib, 



38 . 

therefore, God and man in one. But why is he not then a creature? 
The response is a double one : first, that the term ' ' creature ' ' denotes 
merely origin, whereas "man" or "humanity'" or " flesh" denotes es- 
sence,* and secondly, that our Lord besides having a divine Father 
had also a specially sanctified mother, a virgin upon whom had been 
bestowed the gift — the supernatural, the characteristically spiritual- 
substantial gift — of faith. f But, as Dorner has pointed out, J this 
is simply to transfer the problem from the constitution of Christ 
to that of his mother. The solution cannot do full justice to his 
humanity. § He is, after all, sui generis not simply as to his per- 
sonality as a whole, but even according to his human nature 
alone. His flesh has a different origin and different capacities 
from our own. His flesh from the first is what, according to 

Fleisch, Blut und Gebein ist in himmlischer Klarheit in einem unbegreifiichen 
Lichte und Wesen." Rather is it the case, then, that Christ had a species of 
double corporeity — one bodily principle which owed its capacity for glorification 
and progressive "deification" to the fact that it was essentially divine, and a 
second bodily principle which was essentially human, derived from the earthly 
elements of his mother's constitution. Cf. D 1, 21, 98, 49S, and the many pas- 
sages that set forth the nature of the "Gottwerdung" of the humanity. 

* Creature is not ' ' ein Wort oder eigentlicher Namen des Selbstandes oder der 
Natur des Menschen .... so es doch viel mehr ein Zunamen ist, dadurch 
allein des Menschen Herkommen angezeigt und die Ankunft des alten Menschen 
wird bedeutet" (D 125b). And in the margin: "Creatura non est nomen sub- 
stantia; rei, sed appellatio rei accidens, sicut nativitas, sicut filiatio, generatio, 
etc. Ein Mensch sein sagt von einem Wesen; Creatur vom Herkommen des 
Wesens." At times, however, Schwenckfeld seems to depart from the path of 
strict consistency. Thus in D 254 he says: "Nach aller Schrift Zeugnis werden 
allein zweierlei Wesen aller Dinge befunden: ein gottlich und himmlisch, welches 
allein Gott und seinem Sohne Christus natiirlich zusteht, und wem er es aus 
Gnaden will gonnen; das andere creaturlich und irdisch, in welches Wesen sich 
auch Christus, der Sohn Gottes, seiner Exanition nach eine Zeitlang um unseres 
Heiles willen begeben, da er Knechtsgestalt an sich hat genommen." But such 
a vacillation, quite exceptional in any event, is after all more apparent than real : 
the distinction between man as to his essence and man as to his origin may even 
here be made. It was the only logical position for Schwenckfeld to take, if he 
really meant to attach any importance to his singidar idea of the deification of 
the flesh of Christ. 

t For Sch wen ckf eld's peculiar conception of faith, see p. 69 sqq. For the present 
the remark must suffice, that the effects attributed to the faith of the V irgin 
Mary have a striking analogue in the application of the same principle in the 
sacraments: faith is the nexus between God and the human personality receiving 
the supernatural grace. It is precisely here, as we shall find, that Schwenckfeld's 
"mysticism" reveals its distinctive features most plainly. 

1 Geschichte der prot. Theologie, p. 181. 

§ Cf. Baur, Theol. Jahrb., 1848, p. 520: "Da er seinem Ursprung und Wesen 
nach etwas ganz anders ist als alle andern Menschen, so ist, was er Menschliches 
an sich hat, nur ein verschwindcndes Accidens, das ihrn auch nur den Schein 
eines wahren und wirklichen Menschen giebt. Eine wahre Homousie des Men- 
schen Christus mit andern Menschen konnte Schwenckfeld nich behaupten." 



39 

Schwenckf eld's "mystic" phraseology, ours may become after 
"faith" has borne its perfect fruit — an essentially supernatural 
and spiritualized flesh. There are, in fact, two kinds of flesh in the 
sphere of human life : that of sin, inherited from Adam, and that, 
resembling the former but dominated by grace, that is by the prin- 
ciple of the divine essence itself, which is a supernatural generation. 
The former in the case of every believer is "re-created" into the 
latter. In Christ alone, since the fall of Adam, has there been a 
true humanity free from the principle of sin.* 

The difficulty is only increased by the attempt to bring the unique 
character of the Saviour's humanity into causal connection with 
his mediatorial work in behalf of the race. For it is specifically 
in the flesh of Christ that we must find his basal qualification to 
be our Redeemer : the entire scheme of salvation is built upon the 
principle of the once progressive, but now completely accomplished 
deification of the flesh of Christ. 

It is difficult to present this peculiarity of Schwenckfeld's system 
in any other than his own words. His language places in boldest 
juxtaposition the elements of what in reality is an irreconcilable 
dualism. The Saviour is truly God and trufy man, and yet his 
humanity has become in the strictest sense of the term divine. 
This is the burden of countless christological utterances; the 
author's language remains rigidly consistent in the assertion of 
this absolute inconsistency. We must be content to let his 
thinking rest in a formula which by every reasonable interpre- 
tation simply presents a contradictio in adjecto. The practical 
bearings of this peculiar theory upon the two questions with which 
we still have to deal, the mode of Christ's presence in the Supper, 
and the benefits which faith derives from this sacrament, are so 
important that we cannot forbear bringing the matter somewhat 
more sharply to view. The following deliverance is typical: 
' ' When I say that Christ's flesh is deified, that his flesh or the man 
Jesus of Nazareth by his glorification, ascension and primogenitura 
from the dead has become God and a Lord of heaven and earth, 
I mean nothing else than that the human nature in Christ has be- 
come altogether similar to the divine nature in glory. I do not mean 

* It is obvious that Schwenckfeld's fantastic distinction between the essence 
and the accidental or creaturely origin of our nature is due simply to his errone- 
ous conception of sin as something inherent in our very constitution as creatures. 
Cf . D, p. 107 : " Ja ob auch Adam nie gef alien ware, so wiiren dennoch seine Nach- 
kommlingen von Natur, und alles was aus ihm den Ursprung hat, ohne Christum 
und seine Gnade nichts denn Creaturen und natiirliche Menschen geblieben. ' ' 



40 

that the humanity in Christ is destroyed nor made into the God- 
head (noch zur Gottheit worderi), but that the man in Christ can 
now do all that God can, and that he in Christ's person, united 
with the Word, is to be invoked, worshiped, and divinely honored 
as much as God — one Christ, one Son of God, who is our Lord and 
God absolutely."* In another passage, in discussing the words 
Gottiverdung and Vergottung, he cites the fathers in his support: 
"Thus the fathers mean by the deification of the flesh of Christ, 
that it is poured through, shot through, irradiated and glorified t 
with God and the Holy Spirit in all divine fulness — spiritu repleta 
divina, says Ambrose, that it is completely filled with the Holy Spirit 
and the divine essence and life ; and as Cyril writes concerning the 
sixth chapter of John, that not only the divine nature in Christ but 
also the human regenerates, that the flesh of Christ has now assumed 
the whole reality of the Word and attained unto the power of the 
divine essence; indeed, that his whole body has been filled with the 
vivifying power of the Spirit ; haec tile. This we also call deification 
and becoming God, that God in Christ, albeit in undiminished 
human nature, is all in all, just as he will finally become all in all 
in every Christian. "J From this point of view he compares the 
Lutheran preachers with the Arians : as the latter denied the deity 
of Christ according to the nature of the Word, so the former deny 
his divine glory according to the nature of his flesh. § 

The above citations clearly reveal an apologetic interest in behalf 
of the perfect humanity of the Redeemer. All, therefore, who repre- 
sent Schwenckfeld as teaching a conversion or transmutation of 
the flesh of Jesus into the substance of the Godhead compromise 
his eccentricities with their own conceptions of what logic would 
have required him to say.|| Rather are we to think of this change 

* D 514d. The subject is discussed with wearisome prolixity in the tripartite 
Confession und Erklarung von der Erkenntnis Christi und seiner gbttlichen Herrlich- 
keit, in D, pp. 91-319, as well as in many of the lesser treatises of that volume, and 
in numberless letters in the other folios. No other point in the whole range of 
controversial discussion elicited from Schwenckfeld so many apologetic and 
polemic writings; even his peculiar views of the Supper could not be explained 
without extensive references to this underlying doctrine. 

t The German compounds are scarcely translatable: "mit Gott und dem 
heiligen Geiste in aller gottlichen Ftille ist durchgossen, durchfeuert, durchglanzet 
und verklaret. ' ' 

% C 787c. §C 1008a. 

|| Thus Klee, Dogmengeschichte, II, p. 41, says: "die menschliche Natur sei 
in die gottliche umgewandelt worden." Kurtz, I.e., p. 150, is ambiguous: "so 
dass im Stande der Erhohung seine gottliche und menschliche Natur vollkommen 
in eins verschmolzen sind." Schwenckfeld is careful never to use the verbs 
"umwandeln" or "verwandeln" or their derivatives, but only "wandeln" or 



41 

as a gradual process, as the organic development of the essentially 
divine principle implanted in his humanity from the moment he 
was conceived by the Holy Ghost. The author is fond of present- 
ing this Gottwerdung of Jesus as the counterpart of the Mensch- 
werdung of God.* 

In this progressive deification of the humanity of Christ there are, 
moreover, two clearly marked stages: much is made of the differ- 
ences existing between the estate of the Saviour's humiliation and 
that of his exaltation. f By pressing this distinction and yet 
strongly holding to the unity of Christ's person, Schwenckfeld seeks 
to break the force of the objection that his view of the origin of 
Christ's flesh does injustice to the Redeemer's humanity, and that 
his view of Christ's passion does injustice to the Redeemer's 
divinity. For it must be remembered that no one was more con- 
cerned than he was to maintain the unity of Christ's person. Even 
Luther's scholastic makeshift of the communicatio idiomatum 
did not secure a sufficiently intimate union of the two natures. 
Schwenckfeld wished to have every redemptive act referred to the 
single divine-human personality and never to either of the two 
distinct natures. J But how can the prime necessity underlying 
Schwenckfeld's desire to have a real and essential union of God and 



an equivalent; and in spite of all emphasis upon the oneness of Christ's person 
there is no fusion of the two natures. To be sure, some of the figurative terms 
employed might fairly be interpreted in that way, but such descriptions must be 
read in the light of such explicit negations as the following (D 125d) : "Ich sage 
nochmals, dass ich's nicht also halte als ob die Menschheit Christi sei zur Gottheit 
worden, oder in die Gottheit sei verwandelt, wie mir etliche unbillig zulegen .... 
(Ich) glaube und bekenne . . . . es ist seine Menschheit geandert oder gewandelt 
nicht verkehret, noch verzehret, sondern gewandelt spreche ich, durch die himm- 
lische Gloria gebessert und mit gottlichem Reichtum gemehret. ' ' 

* See the treatise, Dass Christus auch nach seinem Menschen der natilrliche 
wahre Sohn Gottes sei, p. F iiii ; cf . B, pp. 132 sqq., Sendbrief XIII, Von der Mensch- 
werdung des Worts und Gottwerdung des Menschen in Christo. 

t Sometimes three stages are enumerated. Cf. e.g., A 712a, where — quite in 
the style of his allegorical exegesis — the forecourt, the holy place, and the holy 
of holies in the Jewish tabernacle are made to symbolize respectively (1) the in- 
carnation, passion and death of Christ, (2) his resurrection, and (3) his ascension 
to heaven and session at the right hand of God. Usually, however, the last two 
constitute a single idea, the second and final stage in the glorification. Cf. also 
D, pp. 523-531, Summarium von zweierlei Stande, Amt und Erkennung Christi. 

J Cf. D, p. 486 sqq., Von der gottlichen Kindschaft und Herrlichkeit des ganzen 
Sohnes Gottes; ibid., 531-551, Drei christliche Sendbriefe von der Erkenntnis 
Christi beide im Leiden und in seiner gottlichen Herrlichkeit ; and the treatise, not 
in the folios, Von der Ganzheit Christi beide im Leiden und in seiner Herrlichkeit. 
Hence the insistence that Christ should be worshiped even according to his 
human nature. See the treatise, Von der Anbetung Christi. 



42 

man in the Redeemer be fulfilled? If the unity of Christ's person 
is to be preserved — and it was from this point of view and not from 
the duality of natures that Schwenckfeld viewed the problem — 
the only possible solution was one which could emphasize the close- 
ness of the union between the two natures only in proportion as 
time was gained for this progressive development by magnifying 
the difference between the first and the final stages in the union 
between the Word and the flesh; that is, in proportion as the incarna- 
tion is conceived merely as the initial stage in a process that in- 
creasingly deprives the human nature of Christ, in spite of Schwenck- 
feld's protest, of what in the judgment of the historic Church 
constitutes its characteristic attributes, till in the last stage the 
very flesh of Christ has a glory indistinguishable from that of the 
Godhead itself. After all, therefore, it is not real and essential 
divinity that becomes incarnate hi the historic Christ: it is rather, 
in the first instance, only the germinal principle of divinity implanted 
in a human (but non-creaturely) nature.* Nor, on the other hand, 
can the deification of the entire God-man, including his humanity, be 
taken strictly; for in reality it presupposes that the flesh of Christ 
loses its distinctive properties and becomes essentially spiritual. f 
It is, therefore, only by the sacrifice of some of the content of the 
terms "flesh" and "divinity" that Schwenckfeld can vindicate 
his peculiar doctrine of the "glory" assumed by the humanity 
of the Redeemer after his resurrection and ascension. A single 
passage may serve to give the tenor of many. "I repeat, the 
Word became flesh in order that it might conform and render 
similar to itself the flesh which it received into a union with itself, 
in all divine glory, power, might, and capacity. But this did not 
happen suddenlj*, all at once, at the moment of the physical and 
temporal union, which afterward was destroyed by death, to be 
followed, however, by a much more glorious and better union: 
namely, an entirely new, enduring, and altogether divine union 
and glorification which is to last to all eternity. Only then will the 
flesh, as Jerome writes in connection with Phil. 2, be completely 
united and deified, anointed through and through (durchsalbet) , 
and glorified by its union with God the Word in the heavenly es- 
sence and its transfer (Versetzang) into the glory and nature of the 
fulness of the Godhead; only then indeed will the flesh be perfectly 
glorious, divine, and spiritual, that is equal to God in honor, 

* See Schultz, Die Goltheit Christi, p. 2S0 sq., for a brief statement of the strik- 
ing similarity between Scrnvenckf eld's Christology and that of the later Kenoticists. 
t Cf . Baur Die Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit, p. 242 sq. 



43 

power, and might; this I call the deification of the man Christ or 
his becoming like unto God, or his perfect glorification."* There 
can be no doubt, moreover, that the reformer's zeal in this mat- 
ter led him to put the centre of gravity of his whole system in the 
work not of the earthly but of the heavenly Christ. t The summum 
bonum, the indispensable condition of salvation, is the spiritual 
knowledge of the God-man, the "King of grace," first in his 
estate of humiliation and then, and chiefly, in his estate of exalta- 
tion. J 

The suggestiveness and worth of some of these christological 
principles it would be idle to cleny.§ The strong insistence upon 
the oneness of the Redeemer's person, against the Nestorianizing 
tendencies of the Zwinglians on the one hand, and the unsatis- 
factory unity based upon a community of attributes taught by 
the Lutherans on the other, is the dictate of a sound and safe in- 
stinct. But his own construction of the biblical data was too 
much the product of a mind which, in spite of its speculative acute- 
ness and its marked taste for systematic thinking, lacked both the 
logical vigor and the ethical insight necessary to trace his dualistic 
principles to their last consequences. Governed primarily by the 
practical considerations of religious reform, rather than by the 
speculative interests of the scientific theologian; at times naively 
faithful to the letter of Scripture, but more frequently yielding to 
the charms of a spiritualistic interpretation, he was capable of the 
boldest conceivable antagonisms of thought and language: Christ 

* D 513, 514. Cf. the whole Sendbrief, Von seinen zwei Naturen, vornehmlich 
von der Glorie des Fleisches Chrisli. In this doctrine of the."Verklarung" and 
"Vergottung" of the Saviour's humanity lies the reason for the designation so 
often applied to the Schwenckfelders, in accordance with their founder's wish, 
"the Confessors of the Glory of Christ." 

t But it is a mistake to suppose, as is often done, that he denied the fact or 
the need of an objective atonement. Nor is such an extreme statement as that 
of Hodge justified: "With him, as with mystics generally, the ideas of guilt and 
expiation were ignored" (Syst. Theol., I, 83). In view of the many special 
treatises written by him on the passion and death of Christ, the most that can 
be said — and this must not be overlooked, for it is a characteristic defect — is 
that "guilt and expiation, " regardless of the amount of space devoted to them, 
have no logical relation to his peculiar conception of the atonement. The ideas 
were not ignored; they were misapprehended. They were biblical ideas and 
were as such discussed; but they were, as will presently appear, really foreign 
to the nature of his conception of salvation. 

J C 475d: "Wer Christum in priori statu nicht kennt, wie kann er ad pos- 
teriorem so bald aspiriren?" 

§ Baur, Dorner, Erbkam, Schenkcl, and especially Hahn have made it plain 
that his speculations about the person of Christ by no means merit the sum- 
mary condemnation visited upon them by such a writer as Planck. 



retains his true humanity, yet his very flesh is deified. "Christ 
Jesus, I say again, with the testimony of Scripture, has indeed two 
natures: he is indivisibly God and man. But these two natures 
exist in a divine, eternal life and essence, so that the life and es- 
sence of this man, now, after his glorification, ascension to heaven 
and elevation over all the heavens, is not to be viewed and judged 
as the life and essence of a man with a natural soul* — as human 
reason judges and can never come to a higher knowledge — but it 
is to be regarded as the divine life and essence, that of God, existing 
in and like unto God."| 

But our purpose in thus setting forth the salient features 
of Schwenckfeld's doctrine of the person of Christ was none other, 
it will be remembered, than that of securing a knowledge of the 
principles that underlay the reformer's answer to the question 
concerning the mode of the Lord's presence in the Holy Supper. 
To this problem we now return. 

There is much in the Christology of Schwenckfeld which logically 
would have brought him into closest sympathy with Luther's doc- 
trine of the ubiquity of Christ's body 4 For however sharply the 
thought is emphasized that the flesh of Christ has been deified, it 
is to be remembered that an equal stress is laid upon the confess- 
edly scriptural fact that the Redeemer retains his true humanity 
after his resurrection and exaltation. § The apparent approxi- 
mation to Luther's peculiar view becomes even more deceptive 
when we consider how Schwenckfeld interprets the term "the 



* "eines seelhaftigen natiirhchen Menschen." 

t D 844 sq. From the brief account we have here given of Schwenckfeld's 
Christology it is easy to understand how he has been charged with such diverse 
heresies as Docetism and Ebionitism, Nestorianism and Eutychianism, and, by 
modern writers, with Apollinarianism and Kenosis. The verdict depends upon 
what class of passages the critic is pleased to lay chief emphasis. Thus the 
question of his Eutychianism has been variously answered. Hahn (p. 76) and 
Erbkam (Geschichte d. prot. Sekten, p. 467) deny the charge. It must be remem- 
bered, too, that Schwenckfeld in numberless places repudiated the heresy. But 
this is not conclusive. Dorner and Baur, accordingly, take mediating views, 
denying that his teaching is to be placed on one and the same level with historic 
Eutychianism, yet admitting the presence of the essential features of this error. 
It is Baur who (Theol. Jahrb., 1848, pp. 527f.) calls attention to the similarity 
between Schwenckfeld and Apollinaris. Dorner, in both of the works cited, seeks 
to do justice to the disparate and indeed irreconcilable elements of the problem 
as stated by Schwenckfeld, and gives on the whole the most penetrating and just 
criticism. 

J Cf. Dollinger, Die Reformation, I, 241 sq. 

§ The passages already cited will have made this abundantly clear. 



45 

right hand of God" as signifying Christ himself.* For if we 
bear in mind how strongly the reformer insisted upon preserving 
the unity of the Redeemer's person and the glorification of his 
humanity, we might naturally expect to find the strictly divine 
attribute of omnipresence ascribed to the very flesh of the Saviour. 
And indeed precisely this step is taken. The logical consequence 
of this fact, however, is explicitly denied. Christ in his undivided 
and inseparable divine-human personality is everj^where present as 
the ' ' right hand of God ' ' ; but for that very reason he is above all 
considerations of place. f HeaA^en, therefore, the abode of Christ, 
is no locality — no "rdumlicher Ort," no "locus corporalis." Christ 
is in heaven, but is not circumscribed. ' ' Therefore we cannot by 
the aforesaid text [Matt. xiv. 26] detract in any way from the 
glory of the flesh of Christ and his spiritual nature and essence, nor 
for that reason confine Christ to a spatial place, who to-day 
reigns in all divine majesty, and needs no spatial place at all but 
is exalted over all temporal places and conditions into God and 
glorified, just as in the resurrection he easily penetrated every place 
with his body."$ 

In spite, therefore, of the deification of Christ's flesh and the inti- 
macy of the union existing between his two natures, Schwenckfeld 
was bound to differ radically from Luther in his conception of 
the mode of Christ's presence in the sacrament. The precise 
points here at issue will become more evident if, in setting forth 
Schwenckfeld's answer to this decisive question, we reproduce the 
polemic coloring that characterized his whole system of thought. 
For after all Luther's doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's body was 

* It is an interesting analogy that Schwenckfeld employs to body forth his idea 
of the relation of the three persons of the Trinity. ' ' Daher wird auch Christus 
die rechte Hand Gottes des Vaters genannt, dass Gott der Vater durch Christum 
im heiligen Geiste alles hat geschaffen; dass Christus der Sohn, das Wort, ja die 
rechte Hand Gottes ist vom Vater als dem Haupte ins Fleisch ausgegangen und 
hat darin und dadurch Erlosung gewirkt im Finger, das ist im heiligen Geiste" 
(C 104). Cf . in this letter the section entitled ' ' Wie Christus sitzet zu der Rechten 
Gottes und was es sei ' ' (pp. 106-110), and in the tract Apologia und Erklarung der 
Schlesier, etc., section 17, pp. G, Gi, Gii. 

f "Esse ubique est esse in toto, non in parte; est omnia continere, a nullo con- 
tineri, ' ' D 257d, in margin. Cf . the section in the Confession (Part III) entitled 
Vom Wesen des Leibes Christi in der Glorien und ob Christus nach seinen beiden 
Naturen allenthalben sei, und was allenthalben sein heisse, and the tract Verant- 
wortung und Defension fur C. Schwenckfeld der Punkte und Irrthumer damit 
ihn Doctor Joachim von Wat unrecht beschuldigt, especially paragraph 5: Dass 
Christus nicht im Himmel als an einem leiblichen oder raumlichen Orle sitze oder 
umschrieben. 

% B 238b. 



46 

only one of many causes that prevented the Silesian reformer from 
identifying himself, in the eucharistic controversy, with any of the 
recognized church parties or leaders. 

We shall not need to dwell upon his absolute rejection of the Rom- 
ish theory of the Redeemer's presence in the sacrament. The mass 
was to him an abominable idolatry* For him, as for every other 
representative of a genuinely Protestant view of the Supper, the 
bread remained bread and the wine wine.f Transubstantiation is 
regarded as the figment of an unsanctified mind incapable of dis- 
cerning the spiritual content of the letter of Scripture. J The 
Church may indeed present offerings to God, but they are the 
sacrifices of praise and self-denial and service, not of the body of 
Christ. § The all-comprehending objection to Rome's answer of 
the question concerning the mode of the Lord's presence in this rite 
is that the mass detracts from the glory of "the ruling King of 
grace. "|| Christ is not in any such sense in the Supper that his 
presence calls for a worship of the sacramental elements. If No one 
can change the bread into his body; he is no longer under the 
power of sinners.** 

From what has been said of Schwenckf eld's objection to the 
doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's human nature we are prepared to 
see him oppose, in the second place, the Lutheran answer to the 
question concerning the mode of the Lord's presence in the Supper. 

We need not enlarge upon the data already given that showed 

* See especially the four prefatory Sendbriefe in B and the immediately follow- 
ing epistles. 

| Cf Baur, Tertullians Lehre vom Abendmahl .... nebst einer Ubersicht 
(iber die Hauptmomente der Geschichte der Lehre vom Abendmahl, in Tiihinger 
Zeits. filr Theol, 1839, H. 1, pp. 107ff. 

J Cf . B, Part I, pp. 8, 100, and B, p. 442c, C 77a, 969b. 

§ B, pp. 11, 19f. Cf. the tract Von dreierlei Leben der Menschen, especially cap. 
XX, Von dreierlei guten Werken des Glaubens und christlichen Lebens (D 673 sqq.) . 

]| See B, p. 9, where this general consideration is resolved into fifteen specific 
arguments against the mass, as follows: 

1. Sophistica ilia transsubstantio panis in corpus Christi gloriosum. 2. Obla- 
tio corporis Christi sub specie panis pro vivis et defunctis. 3. Trina corporis 
Christi fractio et improbabilis applicatio. 4. Actionis Christi ipsissima perversio. 
5. Peccatorum ficta per opus operatum remissio. 6. Hostire consecrata; tanquam 
idoli adoratio. 7. Christi regis infinitae gloria? localis inclusio. 8. Poenitentia? 
per missam extinctio. 9. Ccense dominica? abolitio. 10. Christi regnantis e 
dextera Patris super altare eorum detractio. 11. Regis e regno suo characteris- 
tica expulsio. 12. Verborum de corpore et sanguine Christi falsa ad panem 
relatio. 13. Sanctorum contra sacerdotium et mediationem Christi invocatio. 
14. Symoniaca missarum nundinantio et gratia? venditio. 15. Precatio cceca et 
inhibita. 

U A 105a. ** Ibid. 



47 

how Luther in his doctrine of the sacraments, in trying to hold a 
middle course between the Romanists and the fanatics,* was 
compelled to approximate the former by the logic of his sharp 
attack upon the latter. He not merely emphasized anew the real 
objective content of the sacrament, but identified this content with 
the material or corporeal presence of the Redeemer in a manner 
that made it possible that the bod) 7 of Christ might be ' ' distributed, 
eaten, and masticated by the teeth" even of an ungodly and unbe- 
lieving man.f Schwenckfeld therefore rejects the Lutheran as 
much as the Roman Catholic idea of the consecratory act hi the 
eucharist. "Therefore consecrare does not mean to convert the 
earthly into the heavenly, or to transubstantiate. Nor does it mean 
to unite one thing with another, as the Lutherans imagine, a sacra- 
mentalem unionem panis cum Christi corpore, nor an impana- 
tionem, eine Eiribrotung, vi verborum, .... but it signifies to 
separate, to accept, by prayer to bless or consecrate something, to 
give thanks unto God, to remember the benefits of Christ, as also 
apud panem vel in pane eucharistico to celebrate the death of Christ, 
to represent the heavenly reality, to praise and thank Christ for 
his spiritual food unto eternal life. It does not mean to seek the 
divine and heavenly in pane eucharistico, much less to regard the 
bread itself as such."| As this passage indicates, Schwenckfeld 
represents the Lutheran doctrine as teaching impanation. § The 
sense in which the term is used, however, does no injustice to the 
peculiar views of this class of his opponents. For while he fails 
to grasp the full significance of the active principle of faith in then- 
system, he clearly apprehends the inadequacies of their "sacra- 

* Cf . Wider die himmlischen Propheten, St. Louis edition, Vol. XX, p. 251: 
' ' Darum gehen wir zwischen beiden hin und machen nichts weder geistlich ndch 
leiblich, sondern halten geistlich was Gott geistlich und leiblich was er leiblich 
raacht." 

f See his "Bedenken" concerning union with the Zwinglians, dated December 
17, 1534, in the St. Louis edition, XVII, col. 2052. Of course the Formula Con- 
cordice (Epitome, Art. VII, Negativa 21; Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, III, p. 
146) utterly rejects and condemns "Capernaiticam manducationem corporis 
Christi quam nobis Saeramentarii contra sua conscientiae testimonium, post tot 
nostras protestationes, malitiose affingunt, " etc. But it was precisely with the 
crass literalism of Luther that Schwenckfeld had to deal. Cf. C 236c. Par- 
ticularly objectionable was the statement in Luther's last Short Confession on the 
Holy Sacrament that the bread in the Supper is the Lord's body, which the godless 
man or Judas receives orally just as much as do St. Peter and all the saints (St. 
Louis edition, XX, col. 1778). Schwenckfeld wrote a special treatise on the sub- 
ject: Ob Judas und die unglaubigen, falschen Christen den Leib und das Blut Jesu 
Christi im Nachtmahl des Herrn empfangen. 

% A 856c. Cf. C 148, B 53d, 61c, 143b. 

§ Cf . also A 415b, B, Part I, 101a, B 38d, C 75c, 97c, 178ff. 



48 

mental union" between the bread and the body of Christ. With 
whatever name he chooses to label the Lutheran doctrine,* he 
reveals in his refutations a clear understanding of the precise 
issues, as appears from his sixfold argument against the theory: 
It is contrary (1) to the content of all Scripture; (2) to the nature of 
the (eternal) Word; (3) to the character of genuine faith; (4) to the 
kingdom, New Testament, and high priesthood of Christ; (5) to the 
honor and glory of God; and (6) to the institution of the Supper and 
the usage of the early Church. f The Lutheran formula "in, with, 
and under" is condemned as an artificial interpretation of the 
words of institution .J The Lutheran view is after all a prop for the 
papacy. "For although Luther out of God's gracious revelation 
pointed out many errors of the papacy" — in this sentence we have 
Schwenckfeld's attitude to the conservatives on the right wing 
accurately pictured — ' ' it was not given him of God to reform the 
sacraments, nor to establish a united, blessed Christian Church; 
he failed even to this extent, that in the article concerning the 
sacrament, upon which the whole papacy and anti-Christian king- 
dom with its foundations, masses and other characteristics is dedi- 
cated, he only confirmed this Church, inasmuch as he fought so 
violently in behalf of the papists, that every priest, no matter what 
sort of man he is, might per verba consecrationis bring down Christ 
from heaven upon the altar into the bread or under its form. ' ' § 

It is plain, therefore, that, apart from all the christological diffi- 
culties involved, Luther's theory of the substantial presence of the 
Redeemer's body was too gross and massive a literalism to suit the 
spiritualistic presuppositions of a man like Schwenckfeld.|| 

* It is well known how the Lutherans object also to the term eonsubstantiation. 
See, e.g., Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and its Theology, pp. 130, 339 sq. 
et passim. But so far at least as Luther, Schwenckfeld's protagonist, is con- 
cerned, there can be no valid objection to the use of the term eonsubstantiation, 
or even its partial equivalent impanation, provided only the idea of a local or 
physical inclusion of the material body of Christ be eliminated. 

f See B, Part I, p. 18, and the whole of the first letter, Vom Grand und von der 
Ursache des Irrthums beim Sacrament des Herrn Nachtmahls. 

X ' ' Etliche sagen er sei im Brot, Etliche unterm Brot, Etliche sagen er sei daa 
rnateriale Brot selbst, da man bald ihre TJngewissheit mag finden. Denn was in, 
mit, oder unter einem Ding ist, kann ja das Ding nicht selbst sein, wie ihr wisset, 
Es werden auch solche mit ihren 'in, mit, oder unter' durch die Worte 'Das ist 
mein Leib' (auf welche sie dennoch fest trotzen) selbst uberwunden" (A 415bc). 

§ C 519d. 

|| It is not necessary to make special reference to Melanchthon. Melanchthon 
expressed a no doubt common judgment upon the Silesian when in a letter to 
Frecht, of October, 1535, he called him "stultum magis quam improbum" 
(Corpus Reformatorum, ed. Bretschneider, II, 955); and in 1556 his chief objection 



49 

But if the Romanists and Lutherans, according to Schwenckfeld, 
practiced idolatry in the eucharist, Zwingli and the Anabaptists 
made too little of this sacrament. Before setting forth his own 
views, therefore, it may be advantageous to consider his objections 
to the Swiss doctrine concerning the mode of Christ's presence in 
the Supper. 

The key to Zwingli' s position is found, of course, in his symbolic 
interpretation of the verb hi the words of institution : est is equiva- 
lent to significat. The Supper is, therefore, primarily a memorial 
of the Saviour's death, a symbolic act picturing this redemptive fact; 
while at the same time stress is laid upon the character of this rite 
as a badge of Christian faith and as a communion with Christ and 
with the fellow-believers.* The Supper is a sign and seal of a 
grace already bestowed, rather than a means by which to secure the 
grace itself. It must be added, however, that Zwingli at times 
unequivocally asserted the spiritual presence of Christ in the sacra- 
ment. To be sure his polemic attitude led him rather to emphasize 
the absence of the Saviour's body, but the other positive factor is 
not to be forgotten.f 



was to the marvelous literary activity of the "hundred-handed" " Stenkf eldius " 
and his "milites, qui ipsius nomine non solum scripta spargunt sed etiam sedi- 
tiones movent, jactitant adflatus, et abducunt homines a publico ministerio et a 
lectione et cogitatione doctrina?" (ibid., VIII, p. 740). Schwenckfeld in turn 
simply identified Melanchthon with the Lutheran movement, and made no allow- 
ance for the mediating tendencies on the eucharistic question revealed by the 
author of the Augsburg Confession in the edition of 1540. Nor indeed could 
Schwenckfeld consistently have adopted even the latest concessions of Melanch- 
thon. For in proportion as the latter receded from his Romanizing position of 
1530 and admitted the figurative interpretation of the words of institution, he wa3 
simply transferring himself from one to another of the extreme parties between 
which Schwenckfeld tried to maintain himself. For the condemnation of 
Schwenckfeld by the Schmalcald theologians, including Justas Jonas, Bugenhagen, 
Melanchthon and Amsdorf, and for Schwenckf eld's reply to their "misunder- 
standing" of his views, see C 691ff. 

* Zwingli's eucharistic views are fully discussed by August Baur, Zwinglis 
Theologie: Ihr Werden und ihr System. See especially I, 357ff., 427ff.; II, 298ff., 
500ff. 

f "Adserimus igitur non sic carnaliter et crasse manducari corpus Christi in 
ccena, ut isti perhibent, sed verum Christi corpus credimus in ccena sacramenta- 
liter et spiritualiter edi a religiosa, ficleli et sancta mente, quomodo et divus 
Chrysostomus sentit. Et haec est brevis summa nostra;, immo non nostra;, sed 
ipsius veritatis, sententia; dehac controversia" (Confessio ad Franciscum Fran- 
corum Regem, in Niemeyer's Collectio Conjessionum, p. 72). Adamson, The Chris- 
tian Doctrine of the Lord's Supper, p. 61, in his account of Zwingli's views, is 
incomplete and even misleading; but he has done well to emphasize anew the 
higher factors in this type of doctrine. Cf. also Ebrard, Das Dogma vom hi. 
Abendmahl und seine Geschichle, II, 220 sqq. 
4 



50 

From what has already been said we are prepared to find 
Schwenckfeld objecting to Zwingli's conception of heaven as a 
locality;* to his strong insistence that the body of Christ, spoken of 
in Matt. xxvi. 26, is that consigned to death and not the risen body,f 
and to the rhetorical device, called alloeosis,% whereby a statement 
made concerning one of the two natures in Christ is to be referred to 
the other without prejudicing either the unity of his person or the 
distinction of his natures. But the chief objection was that against 
the symbolic interpretation of the words of institution. Schwenck- 
feld here clearly discerned that the Zwinglian view embodied 
a rationalistic tendency. § He complained that it reduced the 
Supper to a meal that was nothing more than the manna or paschal 
lamb of the Jews.|| In his judgment no symbolic construction of 
the verb could do justice to the blessed but mysterious reality 
of the sacrament, for which faith is the indispensable con- 
dition. In spite, then, of the points of contact between his 
view and that of the Swiss ^f — the points, namely, in which 
both opposed the Lutheran and Roman Catholic doctrines — 
Schwenckfeld never could rest satisfied with the primary considera- 
tion of Zwinglianism, that the elements after all only symbolize the 
body and blood of Christ. By the ardor of his deep piety rather 
than by the logic of his system, he magnified the reality of the 
sacramental grace with a zeal that appeared all the more impressive 
because his philosophic presuppositions seemed to annihilate the 
external ordinance itself. 

We need not adduce the scattered references to Oecolampad, 
Capito and Bucer.** The first, indeed, emphasized the idea of a 
sacramental nourishment, very much as Schwenckfeld did, and 
considerably enriched Zwingli's refutation of the doctrine of the 
corporeal presence in the Supper. ft But the solution offered by 

* C 597d, 795b. 

t Zwinglii Opera, Schuler et Sehulthess, III, p. 523. Cf . Schwenckfeld's 
Bekenntnis von der gbttlichen Herrlichkeit des Leibes, Fleisches und Bluts Christi, 
in D, pp. 263ff. 

J A 597bc. § Cf . A 727b, B 240a. || A 667d. 

T Zwingli himself (Opera, II, Abt. 3, p. 23), in his Vorrede of 152S to Schwenck- 
feld's Anweisung, declares that the latter's views are not opposed to his own, but 
rather included in them. He here tries to endorse Schwenckfeld's exegesis by- 
citing a Hebrew analogue. Cf . A 673. 

** See especially A 673ff. 

ft Goetz, I.e., p. 72; cf. Kahnis, I.e., pp. 332 sqq. Schwenckfeld even fancied that 
his own view of the difference between the inner and the outer Word was shared 
by Oecolampad. See C 336, where he approvingly quotes the Swiss reformer's 
comment on Ezek. iii. 



51 

Oecolampad, that of interpreting the term corpus in the words of 
institution as the equivalent of figura corporis, was not a whit more 
attractive to the Silesian than was Zwingli's. In his judgment 
both deprived the sacrament of its deepest essence. Capito had, to 
be sure, thoroughly approved of Schwenckfeld's doctrine as early as 
1529.* The same is true of Bucer, who was displeased with Luther's 
harsh treatment of the Silesian.f But later under Bucer's influence 
Capito likewise became a bitter opponent of Schwenckfeld's 
eucharistic (and ecclesiological) views.J 

It is time, however, to let Schwenckfeld present his own positive 
view of the mode of Christ's presence in the Supper. 

He himself tells us at some length the facts concerning the origin 
and growth of his peculiar doctrine. § Unable to believe, as the 
Romanists and Lutherans taught, that even a Judas Iscariot could 
eat the body of Christ, and unable to accept the positive elements of 
Zwingli's teaching as sufficient, Schwenckfeld felt himself moved to 
an independent study of the question which the Carlstadt-Luther 
controversy had already made the most prominent issue in the 
field of religious discussion. Being unfamiliar with Greek at that 
time — it was the year 1525 — he submitted his views to his friend 
Val. Krautwald, of Liegnitz. Krautwald at first sharply opposed 
him, whereupon Schwenckfeld sent him some duodecim qucestiones 
or argumenta contra impanationem.\\ Krautwald himself now 
passed through an experience very similar to that of his correspond- 
ent: there was a season of profound intellectual and spiritual 
anxiety concerning the meaning of the eucharist, when suddenly, 
after three days' meditation and prayer, he received a divine revela- 
tion,^ teaching him a new and more satisfactory interpretation of 

* See the preface, by Capito, to the Apologia und Erklarung der Schlesier dass 
sie den Leibund das Blut, etc., .... nicht verleugnen; cf. A 673ff. 

t Schneider, I.e., Abt. I, p. 9, and n. 15, p. 28f. 

J Gerbert, I.e., pp. 188-193. 

§ The leading passages are contained in C p. 24ff., C. Schwenckfelds Handlung 
und Gesprach mit den Gelehrten zu Wittenberg .... vom rechten Verstande der 
Worte "Das ist mein Leib," and C p. 20 sqq., Von der Offenbarung des rechten 
Verstandes beim Nachtmahl und Essen seines Leibes (anno 1540). Erbkam, 
Geschichte, etc., p. 370f., gives the gist of the narrative. Cf. Hampe, p. llff., 
Planck, V, 1, Buch IV, cap. 7, and Arnold, Kirchen-und Ketzer Hist., I, Th. II, 
Buch XVI, cap. XX, p. 838. 

I! C 22. 

1f We need not by this term understand anything more, in the case of either 
Schwenckfeld or Krautwald, than the sudden enlightenment of the mind earn- 
estly seeking the true sense of Scripture. For Krautwald's experience see the 
letters written by him to Schwenckfeld and incorporated in C as Sendbricje I and 
II, and with this compare Schwenckfeld's story, C 22ff. 



52 

the much discussed words. Thus encouraged Schwenckfeld went 
to Wittenberg,* to submit his views to Luther. The interview was, 
on the whole, encouraging to the inquirer. But "about two 
months later" Luther is said to have written him a sharp letter, 
closing with the words: "In short, either you or we must be the 
devil's bondsmen, because we both claim the Word of God in 
our behalf, "f Nothing daunted, however, the two friends con- 
firmed each other in their singular view and soon the break with 
Luther was complete. 

We may come to the heart of the matter by following the exe- 
getical arguments with which Schwenckfeld sought to buttress his 
theory. $ He inverted the words of institution and made the pro- 
noun a ' ' spiritual demonstrative, ' ' yielding the sense : ' ' My body 
is this, namely, bread or true nourishment for the soul; my blood 
is this, namely, drink or true refreshment for the soul. ' ' In support 
of this exegetical device reference was made to countless alleged 
analogous texts, as, for example, Gen. xvii. 10, "This is my cove- 
nant, ' ' etc. ; Exocl. xii. 27, "It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover" ; 
Ezek. v. 5, " This is Jerusalem. ' ' § Kostlin is doubtless correct in 
attributing the opposition of the Silesian to the figurative inter- 
pretation to the influence of Luther himself,! since he had insisted 
that even in such passages as 1 Cor. x. 4, " and the rock was Christ, ' ' 
the verb is to be taken literally so that the sense would be, Christ 

* This was at least his second trip thither. The first had occurred toward the 
end of 1521. Cf. Schneider, fiber den geschichtlichen Verlauf, etc., Abt. I, p. 4. 
This does not, however, conflict with the more usual statement that the visit 
occurred in 1522; for he stayed there at least long enough to attend the official 
investigation on January 1, 1522, by Melanchthon, into the doings of the 
Zwickau prophets. 

f C p. 22c. Erbkam, I.e., p. 371 n., insists — following the Erlangen edition of 
Luther's works (Vol. 53, p. 383) — that the date of Luther's reply was August 11, 
1526, and that therefore the ' ' two months ' ' here named were in reality nearly 
ten, inasmuch as the interview was held, according to C 24, early in December, 
1525. (Goetz, I.e., p. 77, n. 2, wrongly represents Kostlin, Martin Luther, II 2 , p. 
82, as saying that the interview itself occurred in December of the year 1526) . 
Enders, however (Briefwechsel Luthers,\ T , 338), and following him the editors of 
the St. Louis edition (Vol. XXIa, p. 851), put the date of the letter in question at 
April 14, 1526. Even so the term "two months" must be taken as a round 
expression for four months. Moreover, the concluding sentence, quoted above, 
is not to be found in that form in the epistle. Schwenckfeld must be understood 
as giving merely the spirit of Luther's reply. 

% The "credit" of the discovery belongs to Schwenckfeld; for its scientific 
vindication, however, he was largely — at least until he became master of the 
Greek language — indebted to Krautwald. Cf. Hampe, p. 11. 

§ Cf. A 704. 

|| Martin Luther, II 2 , p. 83. 



53 

was really and truly the rock, namely that spiritual rock.* In the 
same manner Schwenckfeld now and ever after insisted upon the 
literal interpretation of the verb and the "spiritual" interpretation 
of the (predicate) pronoun "this."f 

The rationale of this singular view must be found in the funda- 
mental dualism of Schwenckfeld's system of thought. There are 
in short two kinds of bread in the Supper: the physical and the 
spiritual; the bread of the Lord and the bread which is the Lord. 
Each has its purpose : ' ' There are therefore two kinds of bread and 
drink to be considered in the complete sacramental transaction of 
the Lord's Supper, where it is celebrated with the right under- 
standing, faith, and knowledge, in the due course of grace : one for the 
inner, the other for the outer man that believes. The inner or 
spiritual bread or food, that feeds the soul, no one can give, as has 
been said, save only Christ in the Holy Spirit; and this must under 
all circumstances precede Thereupon follows the sacra- 
mental, external eating to proclaim the death of the Lord and to 
give thanks for his salvation and nourishment."! For this reason 
the pronoun (hoc) is no corporalis demonstratio ad oculum, but a 
spiritualis demonstratio ad intellectum.§ To these two sacra- 

* The mere inversion of the words of institution ought not, of course, to be 
regarded as an insuperable objection to the theory. Cf. Ruckert, Das Abendmahl, 
sein Wesen und seine Gesckichte in der alien Kirche, who, though controverting 
Schwenckfeld's interpretation, yet admits (p. 66f.): "Das griechische Pradikat 
geht seinem Subjekt voran, so lange kein Grund zum Gegenteil ist. In so fern 
hatte Schwenckfeld mit seiner Auffassung recht." And cf. Goetz, who declares, 
I.e., p. 77, that "die griechische Wortstellung in der Brotformel des Mt. und Mk., 
nur fur sich und rein grammatisch betrachtet, eigentlich die Deutung Schwenck- 
f elds mehr begtinstigt als die Luthers, bezw. als die gewohnliche. ' ' In any event 
the essence of his exegesis is found not in the changed order of the words, but in 
his interpretation of the rovro. 

f He was thoroughly familiar with the fantastic view of Carlstadt, who, 
emphasizing the difference in gender between the tovto and the aproc, de- 
clared that the former must refer to the Lord's body (ati/ia), and that the 
Saviour when instituting the Supper pointed to his body as if to say: "This (body 
of mine) is my body (about to be) broken for you; this (blood) is my blood (about 
to be) shed for you. ' ' See the excellent account of Carlstadt's theory by Gobel, 
in Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1842, pp. 329-354. For Schwenckfeld's brief but 
adequate criticism of Carlstadt, see C 61b, C 175d (anno 1526), and C 566. 

J B 72d. This is the burden of countless passages in the folios and the separate 
treatises. Cf. B 564b on the Zweierlei Ordnung alter Hinge. In D 18 the dis- 
tinction between the inner spiritual and the outer physical eating is connected 
with Augustin's distinction between the sacramentum and the res sacramenti. Cf . 
also D, p. 897, Von den zweierlei Brod und Trank in des Herrn Nachtmahl. The 
necessity of appropriating the spiritual before the material food in order to par- 
take worthily of the sacrament is emphasized in A 739a. The error of his oppo- 
nents is ascribed, as usual, to a lack of spiritual discernment in the reading of the 
Word (A 657d, 670a). § C 134f. 



54 

mental realities, the spiritual content and the sensuous sign, more- 
over, the two declarations in the words of institution closely cor- 
respond: "This is my body," and "this do in remembrance of 
me. " " We thus write and maintain, that in the complete Supper 
of the Lord two things are to be found : one is that which the Lord 
did and accompanied with appropriate remarks, when he took the 
bread, gave thanks, and broke it and gave it to the disciples and 
said: 'Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you'; and like- 
wise the cup. The other thing is that which Christ afterward com- 
manded his disciples to do when he said : ' Do this in remembrance 
of me.'"* 

As implied in this passage and frequently stated elsewhere, the 
presence of the true and spiritual bread of life is the logical prius in 
the whole sacramental transaction. And there ought to be no ques- 
tion about Schwenckf eld's wish to emphasize, with all the enthusi- 
asm of his mystic piety, the real presence of the Redeemer at his 
table. For although this has been often denied,! the arguments 
adduced only show that the reformer did not teach the corporeal or 
bodily presence in the Roman or Lutheran sense. The Saviour is 
truly or ' ' really ' ' present, though his body is not there either under 
the "accidents of the bread and wine" or "in, with, or under" 
those elements. "That the presence of Christ in the Lord's 
Supper is not on this account denied" was a favorite thesis. J He 
expresses his delight in the conviction of a correspondent, ' ' that in 
the Lord's Supper his body, flesh and blood, indeed the Lord 
Christ himself, is truly (wahrhaftiglich) and essentially (wesentlich) 
received. ' ' § 

The following passage will serve to show conclusively that he 
held to what must in all fairness be called a true or actual or ' ' real' ' 
presence: "[I believe] that the true body and blood of Christ is 
vere present to faith in the mystery of the holy sacrament (if it is 
observed and understood according to his institution). For that 
reason, too, it is called by the Church ' mysterium fidei, ' inasmuch 

* A 76ld. 

t E.g., Goetz, I.e., p. 75: "Auch Schwenckfeld verwarf, wie die Schweizer, die 
wirkliche Gegenwart. ' ' So also Walch, Einleitung in die Religionsstreitigkeiten, 
4. und 5. Theil, 1736, p. 1012: "In der Lehre vom Abendmahl laugnete er die 
wesentliche Gegenwart des Leibes und Bluts Christi." Even Hahn, I.e., p. 14, 
declares: "Apparet ex his, cur ne divinam quidern Christi naturam Schwenck- 
feldius in pane atque vino eucharistico vere praesentem cogitare potuerit, non ex 
alia nempe causa, nisi quod sint elementa creata, a quibus divina essentia absolute 
sit separata." 

% B 74a. § B 119c. 



55 

as it is only by the light of faith that one can rightly understand 
and celebrate the ordinance, and thus hi the spirit of faith eat the 

body of Christ and enjoy participation in him [I believe] 

that in the Lord's Supper, or in the mystery of the sacrament (as 
the fathers call it), believers eat the body of Christ, not as a sign 
or only figuratively, in thought, but vere, truly (wahrhaftig) , 
essentially (wesentlich) , and in a sensible manner (empfindlich) for 
the nourishment of then souls, and truly drink his blood in and 
out of the living Word of God."* 

These citations will have served to point out both the similarities 
and the divergencies between Schwenckfeld's view and the views 
of his various classes of opponents concerning the mode of Christ's 
presence in the sacrament. On the one hand, the opposition to the 
literalism of the Romish and the Lutheran doctrines must be said 
to exclude every possibility of a corporeal presence. f On the other 
hand, the points of contact with the Swiss or Reformed doctrine are 
equally obvious. At first sight, indeed, it would appear that 
Schwenckfeld's conception of the words of institution is virtually 
the same as that of Zwingli or Oecolampad; that whereas Zwingli 
introduced the symbolic principle into the verb (est), and Oecolam- 
pad into the noun (corpus), Schwenckfeld did precisely the same 
thing by his ' ' spiritual, ' ' or let us rather say his spiritualistic, inter- 
pretation of the pronoun (hoc). It must be admitted, of course, 
that Schwenckfeld regarded the sacramental elements primarily as 
signs or vehicles of representation. J But while accepting in the 
main Zwingli's anti-Romish and anti-Lutheran interpretation of 
the words of institution, Schwenckfeld cannot be said to have been 
satisfied with the rationalistic spirit of the Swiss reformer's general 
conception of the sacrament. Schwenckfeld's positive and most 

* D 50 sq. 

f "Wenn euch aber jemand sagte C.faspar] S.[chwenckfeld] untersteht sich zu 
hindern dass viele Menschen nun nach erkannter Wahrheit das irdische, ge- 
backene Brot mit dem M.[artin] L.[uther] nicht fur Gott halten und abgottischer- 
weise anbeten, die Seligkeit dabei suchen, einen broternen Christum haben, dass 
man die Menschen drauf weiset, da mochte ich gerne horen was ihr dazu wiirdet 
sagen." 

| Schenkel, Das Wesen, etc., I, p. 558, even goes so far as to say: "Dass Brod 
und Wein fur Schwenckfeld keine andere Bedeutung als diejenige eines Dar- 
stellungsmittels hat, bezeugt er schon damit, dass er sich gegen den von Luther 
und auch den Vermittlern gebrauchten Ausdruck 'sacramentliche Einigung' 
(zwischen Christi Leib und Blut und den aussern Zeichen) entschieden erklart. ' ' 
But this would hold equally against the Reformed view. Moreover, the assertion 
in this extreme form fails to do justice to the many passages, only a few of which 
have been cited, that insist upon the true or real presence of Christ, not indeed in 
a "sacramental union" with the physical elements, but in or at the Supper. 



56 

characteristic elements, therefore, such as his emphasis upon the 
real presence and upon the profound nrystery of the inner sacra- 
mental transaction, his idea of the nature of the blessings bestowed 
upon the worthy communicant — in other words of the reality and 
worth of the strictly objective content of the sacred ordinance when 
rightly employed — suggest a comparison with the Calvinistic rather 
than with the Zwinglian or early Swiss view.* 

For Schwenckfeld, like Calvin, taught an essentially figurative 
interpretation of the words of institution, the difference being that 
the latter made the verb and the former the pronoun bear a spiritual 
meaning. Both insisted that the sacrament makes a real offer to the 
communicant not merely of the body and blood of Christ but also 
of his whole person and work, including therefore all the blessings 
of his redemption.! For both faith was of such cardinal import- 
ance that, whereas the Lutheran and the Roman views taught a 
real presence of the body of Christ in such terms as made it possible 
even for the unworthy and the unbelieving to ' ' eat the flesh of the 
Son of man and drink his blood, ' ' they insisted that without faith 
the participants received only the signs and that to their condem- 
nation. Again, Schwenckfeld, like Calvin, not only avoided this 
too intimate association between the sacramental substance and the 
sacramental signs, but sought rather to lay all emphasis upon the 
immediacy of the effect produced upon the believer by the entrance, 
not into his mouth but into his soul, of the spiritual substance of 
the Redeemer's body. Above all, Schwenckfeld, like Calvin, made 
much of the glorified humanity of the Saviour, of his dynamic 



* Cf. Hampe, I.e., p. 12: "so viel ist aber aus den kurzen Andeutungen wohl 
klar geworden, dass Schwenckfeld ungefahr dasselbe lehrte, was etwa 15 Jahre 
spater als Calvinische Lehre weite Yerbreitung fand." Niedncr, Geschichte der 
christlichen Kirche, 1S4G, p. G76, n. 1, declares: "Es ist wesentlich das calvinische 
Sich-erheben-lassen des gliiubigen Geistes zu der vergotteten [this last word is not, 
of course, to be understood as referring also to Calvin's christology] Menschheit 
Christi, durch die Allgegenwartigkeit seines heiligen Geistes; also ohne eine ort- 
liche Selbstversetzung entweder des Menschengeistes in den Hiramel oder des 
Christusleibes auf die Erde. ' ' It must be remembered, however, that Schwenck- 
feld objected as much to Calvin's as to Zwingli's figurative interpretation of the 
verb est. Cf. C 524, where the two are placed together for criticism. Logically, 
however, his protest against the figurative interpretation is not warranted: we 
find here another illustration of the discrepancy between his negations and his 
affirmations. 

f Schwenckfeld's doctrine of the true bread of life has made this clear. The 
point will be more fully discussed in connection with the question of the benefits 
to be derived from a right use of the sacrament. For Calvin's views, see his 
Jnstitutio, Lib. IV, especially c. XVII, sections 10-1S. 



67 

presence in the Supper, of that divine energy that emanated from 
the body of the exalted Lord of life* 

In this virtually Calvinistic sense, therefore, Schwenckfeld 
taught a true or real presence of Christ in the eucharist. A number 
of further similarities between his view and that of the Reformed 
leaders will emerge when we now consider his response to the 
second specific question which engaged the minds of the sacra- 
ment arian controversialists of that day, namely, What are the bene- 
fits to be derived from the right use of the sacred institution? The 
answer has already been given by way of necessary implication. 
But a more adequate discussion of this point will reveal additional 
characteristic elements of Schwenckfeld's system of thought. 

We have seen how his fundamental dualism affected his 
conception of the nature of the sacraments in general and, in 
particular, of the mode of Christ's presence in the Supper. There 
is an outer and there is an inner transaction ; a physical or earthly 
bread and wine, and a spiritual or heavenly bread and wine : and 
corresponding to these there is a carnal eating and drinking, and 
there is a spiritual eating and drinking. And it is obviously with 
these subjective acts, these assimilative processes that we must 
now concern ourselves, if we would ascertain the benefits imparted 
to the worthy or believing communicant. 

Here, as elsewhere, we find Schwenckfeld not only acquainted 
with the theological battle-cries of the day but thoroughly domi- 
nated by their influence ; but here, as elsewhere, his use of them is 
peculiar to himself. In harmony with his view of the eucharist as 
a double reality he distinguishes between two generic kinds of bene- 
fits, those derived from the outer ceremony and those derived from 
the inner mystery. The external act or the commemoratio, whereby 

* The mystical features of Calvin's doctrine of the eucharist are as difficult to 
understand as are Schwenckfeld's peculiarities. E'orard, Das Dogma vom hi. 
Abendmahl, II, 458 sqq., gives what must doubtless be regarded as the fittest 
solution of the problem, when he shows how the substantia of Christ's presence in 
the Supper denotes, according to Calvin, not the material substance of his body, 
but that "essence of the glorified Christ" which is to be conceived primarily as a 
power, an energy, an "actus in actu non extensum in extenso." The similarity 
on this point between Calvin and Schwenckfeld is most striking. But there is a 
difference. Calvin never allows, as Schwenckfeld does, the glorification of the 
Redeemer's human nature to amount to a "deification." Moreover, closely 
connected with tliis is the fact that Calvin represents the Holy Spirit as the 
mediator of the spiritual blessings, whereas Schwenckfeld, with a consistent 
regard for liis mystical, physico-spiritual presuppositions, was rather inclined to 
ascribe this office to the deified God-man in his own person. On the mystical 
elements of Calvin's doctrine of the Supper, compare also Andre 1 Duran, Le 
Mysticisme de Calvin, pp. 62ff. 



58 

the Saviour's death is proclaimed, is at the same time a symbol of 
that internal act, the manducatio, by which faith appropriates the 
blessings of salvation. "These two (namely manducatio and 
commemoratio) must be well distinguished in a divine transaction 
and not be confounded. The eating takes place internally and, as 
has been said, out of the living Word of God The com- 
memoration takes place outwardly in the breaking of the bread of 
the Lord. The eating precedes; the commemoration and thanks- 
giving follow. He who has not eaten and had enough cannot truly 
give thanks. ' '* 

The external rite, then, has primarily a didactic or demonstrative 
value. f "The broken bread teaches, explains, and represents the 
nature of the body of Christ that was given and broken for us. "% 
Thus the external rite, though clearly subordinated to the inner 
mystery, nevertheless performs an important service. § 

Obviously, therefore, the real question concerns the nature of 
this act of manducation|| typified in the outward ordinance. And 
here the significant fact is to be noted that, contrary to the prevail- 
ing views of the time, Schwenckfekl not only took his point of de- 
parture for the interpretation of the words of institution from the 
sixth chapter of the Gospel according to John, but made this dis- 
course refer directly to the Lord's Supper as the fourth evangelist's 
contribution to our knowledge of the eucharist.T[ To him it was 
no accident that the most mystical of the New Testament writings 
contained the key to the solution of the problem of the festal 
' ' mysterium. ' '** There is indeed a corporeal or carnal eating of the 
physical bread itself; but there are no two ways — as Luther claimed 

* B 131a. Cf. the oft-repeated remark: " 'Das ist' gehet vor; 'das thut' 
folget." 

f Schwenckfeld did not reject Zwingli's idea that the sacraments are badges of 
the Christian man's faith. But he had too little interest in the external signifi- 
cance of the rites to emphasize this merely professional value. 

% A 399d, in the margin. Cf. Schenkel, I.e., I, 560, n. 1, for the remarkably 
similar view of Servetus. 

§ Cf. A 857b: "Es bringt gemeldete Rememoratio oder Wiedergedachtnis mit 
Ruminationem et repetitionem omnium beneficiorum Christi. Ita saturatur fidelis 
anima el manducat corpus Christi pro se traditum et bibit sanguinem pro se effusum." 

]| The term is also used synecdocliically to include the "drinking of the blood" 
of Christ. 

If Zwingli of course had insisted upon using this chapter as a guide; especially 
v. 63, "the flesh profiteth nothing" ; but he did not suppose that the passage had 
a primary reference to the Supper. Cf. Baur, Zwinglis Theologie, II, pp. 296 sqq., 
318, 592 et passim. 

** See the treatise, Eine schone und herrliche A uslegung ilber das ganze sechste 
Capitel Johannis von der Speise des ewigen Lebens, especially pp. 126ff. (ed. 1595). 



59 

there are — in which the body of Christ can be eaten, a "spiritual" 
and a " sacramental " manducation. For, according to Schwenck- 
feld, the body of Christ is a purely spiritual food, and hence whether 
it be eaten in the sacrament or, as was possible, apart from these 
elements, the process must be a spiritual one.* Wherever, then, 
the communicant by faith appropriates the spiritual realities 
present to the believers at the Lord's table and typified by the 
sensible signs, he is eating the true bread of life, which is the flesh 
and blood of the Son of God. In effect, therefore, Schwenckfeld 
here concedes, with Zwingli and the Reformed theologians, that 
eating is a tropical expression for " believing, "f The larger 
question accordingly becomes the more precise one: What are the 
redemptive benefits which faith receives in the Gospel, whether with 
or without the use of the sacraments? 

The answers are given in various terms. In the following passage, 
e.g., the language approximates that commonly used to set forth 
the evangelical conception of the work of Christ: "Therein," i.e., 
in the body and blood of Christ, the Christian "receives nothing 
other than divine righteousness, grace, the Holy Ghost, forgiveness 
of sins, peace of conscience, and much spiritual joy continually in 

his heart He who receives the body of Christ through 

faith, receives also the Spirit of Christ who keeps urging him unto 
all good. "J At other times, however, we have the peculiar 
indefiniteness of his mystical or physico-naturalistic conception: 
"He who eats the flesh of Christ partakes of the divine nature, 
flesh of flesh, bone of bone. He who eats the flesh of Christ 
eats life, that eternal life which begins in man here and pre- 
serves the soul from eternal death, so that this food will again 
produce the flesh of man, in a glory equal to that of the soul, at the 
final resurrection, and rescue and keep body and soul from eternal 
death. "§ 

* Cf . B 140 sq. There is therefore no unique or special way of feeding upon 
Christ in the sacrament. The term "sacramental eating" must be equated 
either with the merely physical act of partaking of the eucharistic elements, or 
else — it is after all only a question of the absence or presence of faith — with that 
spiritual manducation which is, according to Schwenckfeld, the only possible way 
of feeding upon Christ's "flesh." 

f Of course Calvin (Inslitutio, IV, c. XVII, 5; Allen's translation, II, p. 529) 
regarded the eating rather as a "fruit and effect" or "consequence" of faith, 
though he admitted that the manducation can be by faith only. But the differ- 
ence between Calvin's personal views and those of the Reformed symbols on 
this point is a negligible quantity. 

% A 331. 

§ Auslegung des sechsten Capiiels Joh., p. 175. Luther himself had taught that 
a physical or magical benefit might be derived from the eucharistic meal to insure 



60 

It is possible, however, to obtain more specific answers than either 
of these to the question concerning the blessings received by faith, 
whether in the use of the Supper or not. Our limits forbid a full 
discussion of Schwenckfeld's soteriology, but it is necessary to set 
forth at least the general principles of the subject as they bear upon 
the point in controversy. 

We must revert to the basal fact of the two so diverse estates in 
which the Saviour performs his mediatorial services; in other words, 
the central importance of the resurrection of Christ must be clearly 
apprehended.* The earthly work of Jesus is to be regarded as the 
basis and the preparation for his heavenly work. The former is to 
be designated as the work of acquiring, and the latter as the work of 
distributing, the redemptive blessings.! All grace is therefore now 
to be found in the risen and glorified Christ. Sometimes, indeed, 
this thought is presented in a way which apparently robs the ob- 
jective atonement of its intrinsic value, or which, to speak more 
positively and at the same time to relate the fact to his philo- 
sophic presuppositions, apparently transmutes the physical reality 
of the Redeemer's body into a spiritual substance to be mediated 
to the believer by the Holy Spirit.! Ordinarily, however, the work 
of Jesus on earth is regarded rather as a preparation for his more 
important service in heaven as ' ' the ruling King of grace. ' ' The 
centre of Schwenckfeld's system of thought must unquestionably be 
found in the mediatorial work of the exalted, i.e., the completely 
deified God-man. § From this point of view the Gospel message 



the bodily resurrection at the last day. Cf. Thimme, Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 
1901, p. 890. But in his later treatises this consideration was not dwelt upon, 
a point which Midler emphasizes in his endeavor to approximate the teachings of 
Luther on this question to those of Calvin (see his Dogmatische Abhandlungen, p. 
417). 

* On this general subject, see D 239 sqq., 465 sq., 507, 527, 825 sq. 

f For the proofs we may refer to the admirable section, ' ' De opere Christi, ' ' in 
Halm, I.e., pp. 52ff. Besides the passages there cited, see D 103, A 694, 861, 
and B 591. Luther had early developed the same mode of representation. See 
his Wider die himmlischen Propheten, St. Louis edition, XX, col. 275: "Von der 
Vergebung der Sunden handeln wir auf zwo Weisen: einmal wie sie erlangt und 
erworben ist, das andermal wie sie ausgetheilt und geschenkt wird." 

X Cf: A 696c, C 943d. 

§ Schwenckfeld's emphasis upon the post-resurrection activities of the Lord 
contained many a corrective suggestion for the one-sided treatment that Luther, 
in the interests of his forensic justification, was prone to accord to the eartlily life 
of the Saviour. Schwenckfeld made much of the two texts: "Jesus our Lord . . . 
who was delivered up for our trespasses and was raised for our justification" 
(Rom. iv. 25), and "Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh: even 
though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more ' ' 
{2 Cor. v. 16). On the common perversion of this last text by mystical interpre- 
ters, see Inge, Christian Mysticism, p. 69 sq. 



61 

is represented as being composed of two unequal but vitally con- 
nected portions. There is the milk for babes and the strong meat for 
adults; there is the word of the cross, and there is the word of life. 
' ' The sum of the Gospel is in the Word of the cross and the Word 
of life. By the Word of the cross is understood the entire mystery of 
the crucified Christ and the entire transaction of all that which 
Christ the eternal Son of God became for our sakes, that he accom- 
plished, earned, and effected by the bitter death of the cross, 
namely, his salvation, reconciliation, self-sacrifice, and satisfaction 
for sin and the forgiveness of the same; while the Word of life 
denotes the whole mystery of the glorified Christ and eternal life ? 
the whole work of our justification and salvation, and all that 
Christ after his ascension to heaven and entrance into the kingdom 
of God effects in believers through the Holy Ghost, and how he 
after accomplishing our salvation upon the cross now brings us to 
his heavenly kingdom unto eternal salvation."* 

It is obvious from the passage just cited that Schwenckfeld 
infused a new meaning into some of the formulas employed to 
designate the blessings of the Gospel. The peculiarities of his sys- 
tem, from this point of view, may be briefly indicated by referring 
to his statements concerning the three specific terms, redemption 
(Erlosung), regeneration (Wiedergeburt) , and justification (Gerecht- 
machung) .f 

Redemption is primarily, as in the early patristic conception, a 
deliverance from the power of Satan. By his death on the cross 
Christ overcame the archfiend of the human race, % and by his 
resurrection he made it possible that man, having been freed from 
the dominion of the devil, should become positively capable of 
triumphing over his foes by virtue of a gradual deliverance from 
the estate of creaturehood itself. § 

This last phase of redemption, however, belongs rather to the 
specific doctrine of regeneration. And here, even more than in 
the case of the somewhat negative consideration of our being 
"bought off" from Satan by the ransom of the divine King's life, 

* D 348 sqq. Concerning the terms "milk" and "strong food," and concern- 
ing the insufficiency of the former, which signified only a historical knowledge of 
Christ, and the absolutely indispensable character of the latter for the truly 
' 'spiritual knowledge" of Christ, see C 898, D 286 sq., 587 sqq., 895 sqq., A 471-476. 

f In what immediately follows we are drawing from Hahn, op. cit., 51 sqq., who 
has with admirable clearness, brevity and accuracy reproduced Schwenckfeld's 
soteriological principles. 

J A 716c, D 435, 463, 742f. Cf. Baur, Lehre von der Versohnung, p. 462n. 

§ D 467 sq. 



62 

the emphasis must be placed upon the distributing, as distinguished 
from the acquiring, activity of the Redeemer, i.e., upon his 
heavenly as distinguished from his earthly work. The act of regen- 
eration or ' ' re-creation, ' ' whereby the believer receives the divine 
principle of the spiritual life, is the beginning of the saving process 
on its subjective side. It would be easy, of course, to cite passages 
which, taken apart from their contexts and from the philosophic 
presuppositions upon which they are based, would appear to be in 
fair harmony with the general evangelical or Protestant view of his 
opponents concerning the initial act in the salvation of man. The 
following is a typical deliverance of this sort : ' ' Thus regeneration 
is an incipient work of God, which he of his pure grace and mercy 
performs without any merit on our part in dead, corrupt man for his 
quickening, righteousness, and salvation; in which work God the 
merciful awakens man from spiritual death through his living 
Word, Jesus Christ, changes the old nature with a heavenly new- 
ness, converts the sinner, begets for himself children and heirs of his 
kingdom; in which he also grants ears to hear, eyes to see, and an 
open heart to understand, and through Jesus Christ in the Holy 
Spirit makes the evil and unrighteous man pious, holy, and right- 
eous."* But the rationale of this regenerative process clearly 
evinces the extent to which Schwenckf eld compromised his biblical 
formulas with his spiritualistic principles. This will become the 
more evident when we interrogate him on the question which, as 
we have -seen, was for him, no less than for Luther, central 
in the practical religious life of that day — the question of 
' ' justification by faith. ' ' For it was precisely in his conception of 
both "justification" and "faith" that Schwenckfeld developed 
to their logical consequences the essentially "mystical" principles 
of his system. 

To be sure, he sought here as elsewhere to defend himself against 
the logic of his novel assertions. Therefore, on the one hand, he 
rejected altogether the Romish idea of meritorious works,f and, on 
the other, he sought to concede as much as possible to Luther's 
doctrine of forensic justification. He made much of the passion 
and death of Christ as the only ground of our reconciliation with 
God. Such language as the following is by no means exceptional : 
' ' This indeed is the joy of our hearts, that if we in faith think of his 
satisfaction, our consciences are quieted and put at ease. And to 

* D 606a. Cf. the whole section, Was ist derm eigentlich die Wiedergeburtf und 
wobei soil sie erkannt werdenl 
t See, e.g., D 653, 657. 



63 

celebrate the Lord's Supper, to eat and drink his blood, signifies the 
awakening of the believing hearts by the Spirit, so that they per- 
ceive the benefits of Christ, remember, inwardly experience, and 
consider them, and with hearty thanks put his wounds upon their 
wounded souls and consciences as a salutary plaster."* The 
blood of Christ is the pledge of our redemption.! The Saviour died, 
the just for the unjust, having become a curse for us. J It is there- 
fore an erroneous representation which declares that Schwenckfeld 
absolutely denied the imputed righteousness of Christ. § The fol- 
lowing citation may serve to show how freely Schwenckfeld could 
use the orthodox phrases: "The righteousness of God is nothing 
but the perceiving, grasping, and appropriating of such grace in 

Christ through faith Only that grace purifies by which 

our sins are not imputed to us."|| 

But if Schwenckfeld did not in practice deny imputed righteous- 
ness to the believing sinner, yet in theory, that is by the logic of 
his system, he was compelled to do so. The historical situation 
had here, too, done its part to force him into an extreme position 
where, in spite of his good intentions, he could not maintain him- 
self in harmony with the Protestant leaders.^" In his eagerness to 

*A379b;cf. A 243, 269. 

| A 301b, D 460. To be quite accurate, however, it must be added that the 
historic bloodshedding is always to be followed by the ' 'spiritual" effusion of the 
Saviour's blood in his heavenly activities. Cf . D 102 sqq., 287, and C 943. 

t A 44b, 301a, 289d. 

§ Baur, e.g. (Lehre von der Versohnung, p. 462), says Schwenckfeld sub- 
stituted essential for imputed righteousness. Ritschl (Rechtfertigung u. Ver- 
sohnung, I 3 , p. 319) likewise asserts, "dass Schwenckfeld von einer angerechneten 
Gerechtigkeit nichts wissen wollte. " But Hahn, I.e., pp. 61ff., gives a more 
accurate statement. In strict consistency Schwenckfeld ought to have denied 
all imputed righteousness; but all attempts thus to measure him by the test of 
other fixed systems of theological opinion are sure to do the reformer injustice by 
failing to take account of some minor yet most highly characteristic and therefore 
important details. Consider, e.g., the following statement, quoted by Hahn from 
A 283: "Siehe Rom. 14; was unsere Gerechtigkeit sei, und dass der allein gerecht 
ist, welchem um des Glaubens Christi willen seine Siinden nicht werden zugerech- 
net. Christo wurden unsere Siinden zugerechnet, da er fur uns am Kreuz eine 
Maledeiung ward, des geniessen wir noch heute." Dorner {Geschichte d. prot. 
Theologie, p. 178) gives a characteristically fair judgment: "Ebenso will er zwar 
Christi Leiden ganz und gar mit der Ivirche seine versohnende Bedeutung lassen; 
aber erinnert, dass man nicht scheiden diirfe zwischen Christi Person und 
Verdienst. ' ' 

|| A 8. Cf. Schenkel, Das Wesen, etc., II, 2S7. 

Tf Cf. Erbkam, Geschichte d. prot. Sekten, pp. 437 sqq., for a criticism of the 
popular Lutheran conception of justification by faith. There can be no doubt 
that much occasion for offense was given by the new "indulgences" to be 
obtained from unworthy Lutheran pastors in connection with the administration 
of the Lord's Supper. Cf. A 411b, and Dollinger, Die Reformation, I, 257ff. 



64 

magnify the grace of Christ as against all religious externalities, 
and especially because of his zeal for the fruits of faith in holy living, 
he not only widened the idea of justification so as to make it include 
sanctification, but also, as we shall have occasion presently to ob- 
serve, deepened the conception of faith so as to make it a sub- 
stantial, we may even say a physico-spiritual, bond between the 
righteous God and the sinful soul. We read: "In fine, we are 
assured by Holy Scripture, thanks be to God, that justificatio in 
Paul denotes a making righteous; justificare, to make righteous; 
and justitia Dei, the righteousness of God, that is, the goodness and 
godliness of the faithful God, which he here imparts to his elect by 
faith through Christ in the Holy Spirit. ' '* Once more all stress is 
laid upon the mediatorial reign of Christ in his exaltation and 
glory. In fact the primary difference between his and the orthodox 
view of justification concerns the basis or ground, rather than the 
mere extent, of this act, or, as he would prefer to say, this work. 
"And in short we must not seek our becoming righteous and our 
righteousness in Christ according to his (earthly) estate in a purely 
historical manner, but according to his other estate, wherein he has 
now been glorified and eternally equipped and appointed by God 
the Father to be the dispenser of the heavenly blessings and the 
head of the Church. ' '| Schwenckfeld at times bravely endeavored 
to preserve the truth of the forensic conception and its correlate, the 
doctrine of an imputed righteousness, yet the logic of his system, 
the consequence of his central idea of the deification of Christ's- 
flesh as the indispensable bond of union between the creature and 
the holy Creator, compelled him to admit : ' ' God considers no one 
righteous in whom there is nothing at all of his essential righteous- 
ness. "J "While , therefore, he had a profoundly ethical view of sin 
and of the need of its expiation, he was yet more concerned for the 
subjective appropriation of divine grace than for the merely ob- 
jective and forensic act whereby, according to his opponents, guilt 
is remitted and a title to eternal life is granted to the believer. § 

* D 484f. For Schwenckfeld's conception of faith, see pp. G9 sqq. 

t D 485. Cf. Hahn, I.e., p. 64: "Itaque solum glorificatum Christum putavit 
justification's nostra; fundamentum. ' ' On the similarity in this and other respects 
between Schwenckfeld and Osiander, as well as for the differences between the 
two, see Hahn, ibid., pp. 63-70; Erbkam, I.e., p. 443; Baur, Lehre von der Ver- 
sohnung, pp. 326ff., 340ff . ; and Schwenckfeld, C 942 sq. % A 812c. 

§ It is perfectly in accord with the facts, therefore, when Hahn (I.e., p. 55, n. 3) 
and Ritschl {Rechtfertigung und Versbhnung, I 3 , p. 318) declare that the idea of 
expiation is one that does not harmonize with Schwenckf eld's mystical principles. 
He retained the current biblical formulas, but infused into them a characteristic 
physico-spiritual content. 



65 

It is not necessary for our purpose to dwell upon the subsidiary 
features of Schwenckf eld's conception of the nature of justifica- 
tion. He has often been accused of reverting to Catholicism in his 
discussion of the need and importance of good works. But the 
charge is ill founded. He was neither a legalist nor a perfectionist. 
Such was his conviction of the estrangement between the creature 
and the Creator that even the regenerated soul can do nothing to 
merit the divine favor, nor can it ever in this life reach a point 
where it is absolutely free from the defilement and bondage of sin. 
In these matters, indeed, Schwenckfeld may be said to have equaled 
any of his contemporaries in sobriety of judgment and keenness of 
insight into the biblical data concerning the relations of faith and 
works.* He therefore did not purpose to deny the orthodox doc- 
trines of the imputed righteousness and the vicariousness of Christ's 
death, nor had he any desire, with his emphasis on the need of holy 
living, to countenance the Romish idea of the meritorious char- 
acter of good works. The fact is that he simply used the term 
justification, as Luther himself had done,f in the double sense of 
declaring and making righteous; but that, in accordance with his 
spiritualistic tendency, he laid primary stress upon the latter factor. 
In short, he widened the application of the word to the whole pro- 
cess of salvation, including that which to him was the basal con- 
sideration, the redemption from creaturehood itself. Sanctifica- 
tion is only another name for the same gradual transformation .$ 

* Cf. the verdict of Schenkel, Das Wesen des Prot., II, 520. It is true that 
Schwenckfeld speaks much of the rewards of Christian service, but, on the other 
hand, no reformer recognized more clearly than he did the all-sufficiency and the 
absolutely exclusive merit of the Redeemer's work. Even our own good deeds 
are in reality nothing but the manifestations of the life of God within the soul. 
Christ is himself the merit of our good works. See The Threefold Life of Man, 
Anspach's Translation, Ch. XXX, p. Ill, "How the Word, the Reward and 
Merit of Good Works are to be properly adjudged and understood." The For- 
mula Concordia? (Epitome, Art. XII; in Schaff, Creeds, etc., Ill, p. 178) clearly 
reveals the influence of Schwenckf eld's antagonists, Andrea and Flacius, when it 
represents him as saying: "Quod homo pius, vere per Spiritum Dei regeneratus, 
legem Dei in hac vita perfecte servare et implere valeat." Kurtz, I.e., p. 150, 
repeats the unjust charge. It is true that Schwenckfeld made much of the text, 
"Whoso abideth in him sinneth not" (1 John iii. 5), and delighted in the paradox, 
"Christians have sin, yet sin not" (e.g., A 209a) ; but the context always explains 
such declarations in harmony with the constantly recurring principle: "We never 
live without sin before God" (A 379a). Even Planck, accordingly, charges the 
Lutheran divines with chicanery and falsehood in this matter (Geschichte der 
Entstehung, etc., Vol. V, 1, p. 221). 

t Cf . Loofs, Dogmengeschichte 3 , p. 351 sqq., and Otto, Anschauung vom heiligen 
Geiste bei Luther, p. 27f . 

% Cf. D 725c, in margin: "Die Justificatio ist nicht allein Vergebung der Siinden, 
sondern auch die Heiligung und Erneuerung des innerlichen Mcnschen." 
5 



66 

Indeed, even the more restricted term "pardon" is likewise 
stretched far beyond its usual limits,* and made to designate the 
actual removal of the sins and even the totality of redemptive 
blessings. 

It is plain, then, that the characteristic features of Schwenckfeld's 
conception of the mode of salvation, and therefore also of the nature 
of the benefits to be derived from a right use of the sacramental 
Supper, must be sought, not so much in his polemic statements 
against his opponents — for he largely used their own and the 
biblical formulas — as in the elaboration of his positive views con- 
cerning the very essence of Christianity. We do not come to the 
heart of the matter, therefore, until, regardless of his frequent 
attempts to harmonize his speculations with the more usual inter- 
pretations of Scripture then in vogue, we fully apprehend the 
essentially mystical or magical mode in which he conceived the 
process of salvation. Along the periphery of his theologizing, to 
be sure, he ever took pains to avoid the extremes of the more 
radical subjectivism of that day, and even at the expense of self- 
consistency he strove, as we have seen, to take more thoroughly 
conservative views of the Word, of the Church, and of the Sacra- 
ments than his philosophic presuppositions strictly warranted. 
But at the centre and core of his system of thought, and in the very 
heart of his practical piety, he reveals the characteristics of a 
genuine Protestant mysticism. It is necessary, in conclusion, 
therefore, to ascertain the precise nature of the causes that made 
him take, so far as the question of the sacred Supper is concerned, 
the mediating and unstable, because not strictly logical, position 
he assumed. We have still to learn the deepest meaning of the 
correlative terms "justification" and "faith." 

It cannot be too sharply emphasized, then, that however dili- 
gently Schwenckfeld strove to get scriptural warrant for his views 
and to accommodate himself to the new formulas of the Protestant 
theology, he taught an essentially physi co-spiritual salvation, in 
which the communication of the divine life as a substantive prin- 
ciple must be magically effected. 

*D921d, 922: " Was ist aber Vergebung der Siinden fur ein Ding? Antwort: 
es ist nich allein ein Nichtzurechnung der Siinden .... nicht allein eine gnadige, 
barmherzige Nachlassung der Strafe Gottes, so wir durch die Sunde und Unge- 
horsam vor Gott wold verschuldet haben; sondern es ist auch ein Toten, Abtilgen, 
und Hinnehmen der Siinden vom Herzen und Gewissen .... Da ist die Sunde 
mit ihrer Klage tod, ja vor Gott hinweg und abgetilgt, das Herz ist gereinigt, und 
zur Einwohnung der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit zubereitet, dass auch der Mensch, der 
in Chris to bleibet, alsdann weder den ewigen Tod, der Siinden Sold ist, noch das 
hollische Feuer, welches ihre Strafe ist, nicht niehr darf fiirchten." 



67 

In spite of all that has been said, therefore, to show that he in 
explicit terms admitted the traditional views concerning the vicari- 
ous atonement as a basis for the imputation of Christ's righteous- 
ness, we must be prepared to find a disturbing stress laid upon the 
inward subjective appropriation of the divine-human essence of 
the Redeemer himself. The Word must become " spirit-flesh' ' in 
every believer. "It is therefore not enough that we believe that 
the Word has become flesh, but we must also believe that it still 
for Christ's sake becomes flesh. I repeat, we must know not only 
that Jesus Christ then came into the flesh, but that even to-day he 
by reason of his holy and glorified flesh comes into all other flesh 
which receives him in faith, and that he regenerates this, leads it by 
the Spirit, and makes it a child of God. ' '* Christ, then, is to be 
born and fashioned anew in every soul that is to be redeemed. 
But this language is for Schwenckfeld no mere metaphor. Such 
is his conception of salvation, that the whole process appears as a 
realistic transformation of the natural man, body and soul, into 
an ever-increasing likeness to the deified humanity of Christ, the 
goal being such a participation in the divine essence that the sinner 
himself is divinitized.f 

The details of the process are worked out with more or less in- 
genuity in the adaptation of the theory to the biblical data. The 

* A 517b. Cf. the marginal caption, "Wie das Wort noch heute in den Glau- 
bigen geistliches Fleisch werde. ' ' 

f Such at least is the obvious import of the strong language sometimes em- 
ployed. Cf. D 142: "So konnten sie [his Lutheran opponents] aus der Gnaden 
Gottes, auch mit der Schrift Zeugnis, den allerteuersten Wechsel bald finden, dass 
Gott drum sei Mensch worden, auf das der Mensch wiederum Gott wiirde in Chris to 
unserm Herrn." Cf. the phrase in D 856c, "je langer je mehr vergottet." It 
must immediately be added, however, that Schwenckfeld did not purpose to be 
a pantheist. His conception of God is too personal, too ethical, to permit such 
an interpretation. He reveals even in the immediate contexts of such passages 
as we have just referred to his fundamentally practical and moral aim: "ver- 
gottet," after all, means only "geistlich und heil gemacht zur volligen Gesund- 
heit." We have here another illustration of the danger of magnifying the 
speculative at the expense of the religious and ethical element in Schwenckfeld- 
Philosophically, indeed, he may be said to overcome his dualism by pantheistic- 
ally transcending it. But in the adjustment of his basal principles to his biblical 
exegesis he resolutely avoids the unethical conclusions to which his speculations 
would lead. He made much of St. Peter's phrase concerning our becoming "par- 
takers of the divine nature ' ' (2 Peter i. 4), but he had just as little intention as the 
apostle had of countenancing pantheism. The most that can be said against him, 
from this point of view, is that he at times used forms of speech which, if not con- 
strued in the light of his considerations for the practical religious life, would in- 
evitably lead to pantheism. Cf. A 2S6d, where he explicitly attacks Sebastian 
Franck's genuinely pantheistic utterances concerning the indwelling of the Word 
of God, the divine seed, in all men. 



68 

first stage of the development is that whereby "Christ is con- 
ceived and born in us by faith. ' '* This is the beginning of the 
Christian experience, the dawn in the heart of the spiritual light 
necessary to apprehend the Redeemer in his true worth. This he 
also designates the "regeneration" of the sinner, which, it will be 
remembered, he made to consist of a supernatural or creative act, 
whereby the principle of sonship is implanted in the creature in 
order, by a process of inner transformation, to bring him completely 
into the estate of grace. The second stage is that of conformity to 
Christ, ' ' which the Holy Spirit by faith effects in the members of his 
body, and it is the whole life of Christ in the flesh, with his doctrine, 
miracles, and benefits, .... so that Christ becomes strong in us, 
and we more and more faithfully follow him in his walk and life by 
means of the proffered grace." The thud stage pertains to the 
' ' crucifixion of Christ in us, " which is to be understood both of the 
trials and hardships imposed upon the Christians by the world and 
of the never-ceasing warfare between the flesh and the Spirit. The 
fourth stage, ' ' that Christ is buried in us, " constitutes the victory 
of the Spirit over the world and the flesh and the devil. f The fifth 
stage is the resurrection of Christ within us, when he fully triumphs 
in our lives and renders it impossible for us to be permanently 
estranged from the Lord. J The sixth stage, that of the ' ' ascension 
of Christ within us, ' ' denotes the continual upward drawing of the 
heart to the affairs of its heavenly citizenship. The final or seventh 
stage is "that Christ in us sits at the right hand of his heavenly 
Father." Here "man often learns more in one hour, when he is 
drawn rapturously to this point, than otherwise in much time ; here 
we only begin to know the glory, honor, might and power of the 
man, yea of the flesh of Jesus Christ according to the Spirit, through 
which merit and glory all these gifts are granted to our poor flesh. ' ' 
It may be supposed that this is but pictorial language, to set 
forth with realistic force the sinner's need of apprehending the 
whole objective work of Christ, from its first inception in the incar- 
nation itself to its unending activity in the mediatorial reign in the 
kingdom of heaven. And doubtless in many passages that speak 
of the indwelling and informing Christ the writer meant no more 

* In what immediately follows we draw from the chief passage on the subject, 
B 522-532, Vom Geheimnis der ganzen Ausfuhrung Christi, wie wiser Fleisch aus 
Gnaden mit ihm in eine Gemeinschaft komme. 

f The more accurate designation, "our being buried in Christ," is also used. 

% In this connection the fact is emphasized that, so far as the time element is 
concerned, the various stages may follow one another in quick succession or after 
long intervals. 



69 

than Christians have ever understood by those terms, which identify 
the life-process itself in the redeemed soul with Christ, its author, 
its object, and its end. But, as a rule, there is something deeper, 
something more substantial, something genuinely mystical em- 
bodied in these fanciful formulas. More and more the Christian is 
dominated by the life which, emanating in a concrete manner from 
the deified flesh, of the Redeemer, implants its essential principle 
in the sinner. The substance of God himself is communicated from 
the glorified humanity of Christ.* 

The practical question for us in this connection, therefore, is 
that concerning the mode in which these physico-spiritual blessings 
axe conferred upon the Christian in the Supper. The answer is the 
thoroughly conventional one, that the bestowal and reception of 
grace, whether in the sacraments or apart from them, is all a matter 
of faith. Manifestly, then, Schwenckfeld ought to give a scientific 
vindication of faith as the instrument whereby the soul receives her 
spiritual gifts. But this is precisely where he utterly fails to bring 
his philosophic presuppositions into harmony with the practical 
exigencies of his religious teaching. Faith is to serve, as we have 
seen, as the nexus between the outer ceremonial rite and the inward 
or truly sacramental transaction. But what dialectic connection 
is effected by the use of this pre-eminently scriptural term? How 
does faith, coming to the Lord's table, receive from the consecrated 
elements a spiritual gift? Or, once more to reduce the matter to 
the largest common denominator, how does faith ever appropriate 
Christ? 

The problem, by reason of its practical importance, often pressed 
itself upon the reformer's attention. But his laborious efforts 
toward its solution amount in effect only to an ingenious petitio 
principii. The central significance of this Christian virtue of 
faith is, indeed, clearly apprehended; but there is no satisfactory 
explanation of the function which, according to the logic of his 
system, faith must needs perform. Never having fully grasped 
that profoundly religious and ethical conception of the term which 



* Cf. A 627d, where the "gottlich, geistlich Wesen" acquired by Christ after 
his resurrection is represented as being imparted to the believer at the beginning of 
his life of faith. A 831b even speaks of Christians becoming gods by virtue of the 
fullness of the divine life implanted in them. In D 379a, Schwenckfeld speaks of 
the virtues of the Christian character as being, "in a measure and in part, by 
grace, that which God is naturally, and in the totality, and in perfect fullness." 
The biblical "indwelling of the Spirit" is made to signify a deification of the 
human soul or its participation in the divine essence {ibid). 



; 70 

his spiritual father Luther had acquired in the course of an extra- 
ordinary experience of the grace of God, Schwenckfeld, in his zeal to 
refute what was after all only a caricature of the evangelical view of 
faith, succumbed to the temptation of going to the opposite ex- 
treme of fairly annihilating the ethical and religious factors in the 
process of salvation. Nothing indeed was farther from his de- 
liberate intention : his conceptions of God and man, of holiness 
and sin, reveal a sufficiently clear apprehension of the moral qual- 
ity pertaining to freedom of choice. But his theory of the 
nature and function of the concrete, physico-spiritual substance of 
the deified flesh of Christ had such a determining influence upon his 
speculations that, in spite of his efforts to cast his thought into 
biblical moulds, and in spite of his meritorious services in criticising 
the ethical shortcomings of misunderstood and misapplied evangel- 
icalism, he himself could not, except by occasionally departing from 
his own premises in the interests of his ardent piety, vindicate for 
personal faith a genuinely religious and ethical significance. His 
' ' spiritual ' ' knowledge of Christ is after all no real knowledge : it is 
at best a consciousness, a feeling; it cannot, or at least it does not, 
establish its claims by any dialectic addressed to reason. In his 
own case, indeed, his "faith" worked beautifully by love; it filled 
the heart of the persecuted man with the holy confidence and 
gladness that inspired the noble motto, ' ' Nil triste, Christo recepto. ' ' 
Above all ascetic weakness, he took a serious yet thoroughly sane 
view of the things of time and sense; free likewise from the ecstatic 
elations of the professed mystic, he yet hoped intently for the 
blessed consummation of the heavenly kingdom. But his faith, 
real, ardent, mighty as it must have been in his own experience, 
could not give any rational account of the high prerogatives it 
claimed for itself. It was somehow to serve as the means whereby 
the soul must come into the possession of her spiritual treasures; 
but in the confessedly difficult subject of the psychology of faith he 
found it impossible, in spite of his numerous biblical citations, to 
remove or conceal his dialectic embarrassment. A few passages 
from his works will show the magnitude of his difficulty. 

He never wearies of imputing to his opponents a purely ' ' historic" 
or rationalistic, as distinguished from a "true" or "spiritual," 
faith. "The Lutherans," we are told, have a historical Christ 
whom they know according to the letter, according to the events of 
his life, his teachings, miracles, and deeds, not as he to-day lives 
and works; just as they have a historical rationalistic faith (Ver- 
nunftglauben) and a historical justification, which they base upon 



71 

the promises, no matter to whom they belong.* He insists that his 
critics make too marked a separation between their creed and 
their conduct. f They have only the faith that may come from 
a knowledge of the letter of Scripture, not the faith that comes only 
from the hearing of the inner Word. J They fail to realize the 
difference between a dead faith and a vitalizing knowledge of the 
Redeemer. They look too much to mere ceremonial rites, and not 
enough to Christ the "ruling King of grace. "§ 

But if it is only just to make some concessions to Schwenckfeld so 
far as his general criticism of his opponents is concerned, his own 
positive or constructive views of faith are altogether unsatisfactory. 
For we must not permit ourselves to be deceived by the apparent 
scripturalness of his statements that faith is a gift, and that as such 
it is mediated to the sinful soul directly by the divine-human 
Redeemer. Schwenckfeld gives these assertions a far different 
significance from that ordinarily connected with them. To him 
faith is a real, substantive principle. It is, in a word, a portion of 
the very being of God. ' ' Now therefore true faith is a gift of God, 
a present of the Holy Spirit. It is fundamentally (im Grunde) one 
essence with him who gives and presents it; a co-partner (Mit- 
genosse) with him who does and works all things; a beam of the 
eternal sun. It is a little spark of that burning fire which is God 
himself. "|| It is a part of that which in its fullness exists in God 
only.^f " It is a scion or plant of the divine righteousness, essen- 
tially implanted and established in the heart of man. "** " It is, ' ' 



* A 812. 

t Ibid. 

t See, e.g., D 637 sqq., C 462, A 421-4. 

§ B 638 sq. 

|| A 814cd. Cf. the equally striking statement in A 420: "Daher kommt der 
wahre gerechtmachende christliche Glaube aus Gottes Natur, Selbstand und 
Wesen, wie er derm vor Anfang der Welt samt andern geistlichen Gaben in Gott 
verb or gen. ' ' 

f Cf. D 379. The analog}' of the sun shedding its beams without diminishing 
itself is here repeated. The margin, to be sure, would guard against our speaking 
of a particula solis in case of the radiating beams. But the illustration itself, and 
the other statements on the subject, make it plain that faith must, as the logic of 
his system requires, be conceived as a substantive, a physico-spiritual principle. 
How closely Luther approximated such statements may be seen in Hering, 
Luthers Mystik, pp. 97 sqq., 170 sq. ; and cf. Dorner, Lehre von der Person Christi, 
p. 631, n. 1. Schenkel, I.e., II, p. 440, compares Schwenckfeld in this respect with 
Servetus and Osiander. 

** D 380d. . 



72 

to revert to the favorite mode of representation, ' ' a stream and 
radiance of the heavenly light and fire which is God himself. ' '* 

These passages will abundantly have shown how impersonal is 
Schwenckfeld's conception of faith. It seems at times to be 
nothing but an ethereal substance emanating from the spirit-flesh of 
the glorified Christ. It is produced in an altogether one-sided and 
magical manner by a divine causality, there being logically no place 
left for the free act of a moral agent. Man indeed, strictly speaking, 
cannot believe. He is to wait in a state of passivity until the im- 
planting of the divine life has been effected; faith in its first stage 
is identified with regeneration. The strong emphasis laid upon the 
uselessness of ' ' means of grace ' ' — it will be remembered, however, 
that here too the practice did not quite keep pace with the theory — 
only made the whole process of salvation appear altogether supra- 
rational, f To be sure, the theory admirably served the one pur- 
pose the author had in mind : the presence of such a faith fills the 
heart with unmistakable signs of its presence ; the beam reveals 
itself by its own light and warms by its own ardor. Himself not 
given to ecstatic excesses, he at least left the door wide open for the 
vagaries of a genuinely mystical subjectivism. If he himself was 
saved from a more radical spiritualism by his vigorous and well- 
controlled religious life which expressed itself in the normal chan- 
nels of service, his theory of the mode of salvation cannot fairly be 
said to do justice to the ethical needs of men. With all his objec- 
tions, therefore, to the Lutheran and Reformed doctrine of pre- 

* D 63-ld. Cf . also A 517, C 280d, D 145a. It was such mystical language that 
led Mat. Flacius to say of Schwenckfeld (see the Verlegung der kurzen Antwort 
des Schwenckfeldt, 1554, p. C iii) : "Was ist er aber fur ein toller Heiliger, dem das 
Wort Gottes das Wesen Gottes selbst ist, das Evangelium ist ihm das Wesen 
Gottes, der Glaube ist ihm das Wesen Gottes, unsere Erneuerung ist ihm das 
Wesen Gottes, unsere Gerechtigkeit vor Gott ist ihm das Wesen Gottes. Alle 
Gaben des heiligen Geistes sind ihm das Wesen Gottes." We are prepared to 
realize how much in this representation is true and how much is a caricature of 
the truth. It would be easy to treat many another doctrine of Schwenckfeld in 
this fashion. At the same time it must be admitted that there is no other point 
so openly vulnerable in liis system as his conception of the office of faith. Here 
the practical religious interests that ordinarily held him back from the logical 
extremity of his principles did not, and could not, preserve for liis mysticism a 
truly ethical significance. 

f Cf. the passage C 372: "Wer von aussen ein und durch das Aussere in das 

Innere will kommen, der versteht nicht den Gnadenlauf Der Mensch 

muss alles vergessen und fallen lassen und zu dem Einsprechen der Gnaden und 
aller Dinge ledig gelassen und alien Creaturen genommen sein, ganzlich Gott 

ergeben Deswegen ist der Gnaden und des heiligen Geistes einiger 

Schlitt und Mittel, darauf er in die stille Seele rutscht, sein allmachtiges ewiges 
Wort, so ohne Mittel von dem Mund Gottes ausgeht." 



73 

destination * he can do no more for the sinner than to point him to 
a faith which is essentially an implanting of the divine substance, 
an altogether impersonal and unintelligible act so far as the bene- 
ficiary is concerned. Here, then, the two extremes meet — that 
which he regarded as the one-sided externalism of the Lutheran 
movement and that to which, with the protest of his mystical piety 
against all religious deadness and all mechanical ecclesiasticism, he 
himself went when he made faith a concrete ingrafting into the 
heart of the substantive principle of divinity. In the one case, as in 
the other, the ethical needs of the believer were jeopardized; but 
whereas in Lutheranism it was the practice that failed to maintain 
itself on the high level of the evangelical theory, in Schwenckfeld 
the defective theory of faith was wisely overruled in practice by a 
consideration for the religious welfare of the believer. And just as 
Luther, in his doctrine concerning the mode in which sacramental 
blessings are conferred, made the physical organ of the mouth the 
channel for the transmission of a spiritual benefit, so Schwenckfeld 
converted faith, a strictly spiritual act, into a vehicle for the trans- 
mission of a hyperphysical substance which none the less must some- 
how influence the body as well as the soul. 

A practical illustration of the difficulty in which Schwenckfeld's 
theory of faith involved his whole system may be found in his 
views on the subject of the salvation of the Old Testament saints. 

From all that has been said it would appear that no person living 
before the time of the incarnation, i.e., before this mystical or 
hyperphysical flesh of Christ came into existence, could feed his 
soul upon the true bread of life, which, as we have seen, is nothing 
other than the flesh and blood of the Son of man. And this is pre- 
cisely how some of the interpreters have represented the matter. 
Planck, for example, declares that Schwenckfeld explicitly taught 
that under the old economy no one was or could be saved. f 

There can be no doubt that Schwenckfeld refused to place the 
ceremonial rites of the Old upon the same plane with the sacraments 
of the New Testament. The latter not only signify or symbolize the 
spiritual blessings, but they actually convey them.J The two dis- 
pensations are generically different in that the Old consists in ' ' ex- 

* See, e.g., D 39Sff., 412ff., 420ff. 

t Geschichte d. Entstehung, etc., V, B. IV, pp. 119, 189, 192 sq. Dr. Hodge, 
System. Theol., II, 587, was probably following Planck in declaring: "In a Send- 
brief written in 1532, in wjiich he treats of the difference between the Old and New 
Testament economies, he says that under the former there was no saving faith, 
and no justification, and that all the patriarchs had therefore perished forever ' ' 

t A 510. 



74 

ternal divine service, promises, carnal justifications and external 
holiness, and is a shadow of the heavenly blessings ' ' ; whereas the 
New consists in the "spiritual, true justification through the blood 
of Jesus Christ."* Baptism is therefore not a Jewish cleansing. f 
He finds fault with Calvin, Bullinger and others for not making a 
sufficiently broad distinction between the two covenants.^ 

The fact is, however, that Schwenckfeld unequivocally taught 
the salvation of all Old Testament worthies, and that too according 
to the same principles that obtain in the new dispensation, that is 
by "faith" in the divine-human Mediator. To be sure, one loose- 
jointed sentence in the chief letter on the subject seems to militate 
against this assertion: "That in short no person before Christ 
entered heaven, or was able to receive salvation; that all holy 
fathers, patriarchs and prophets hoped in and waited for Christ, and 
by faith in the promises were preserved in Abraham's bosom. ' ' But 
not only does the margin rightly give the gist of the passage, ' ' that 
no person has been able to enter the divine glory without the suf- 
fering of Christ, ' ' but the letter repeatedly states, what is likewise 
the uniform representation elsewhere, that the patriarchs became 
participants in the merits of Christ's saving work. § 

But of course the real question, again, is not whether Schwenck- 
feld at times taught the salvation of the Old Testament saints, but 
whether he could with logical consistency take this view of the 
problem. Must we not in this case also find his explicit statements 
conflicting with the basal principles of his philosophy and theology? 

* B 593b. 

f B, Part I, p. 112ff. Cf. the entire third letter: "Darin bewiesen wird dass die 
Sacramente Christi nicht aus dem Gesetz Mosi genommen noch den Ceremonien 
oder Sacramenten des alten Testaments mogen verglichen werden. ' ' 

% C 521d. Cf. Kahnis, Die Lehre vom Abendmahl, p. 462. 

§ A p. 57 speaks of faith's bringing Christ into the heart and effecting "one sort 
of forgiveness of sins, grace and salvation in all saints," "whether at the begin- 
ning, middle or end of the world. ' ' Cf . also p. 58b : ' ' Drum so ist deshalben kein 
Unterschied zwischen den glaubigen Viitern im alten Testament und zwischen 
uns die wir glauben. ' ' The difference, therefore, to which attention is called in 
the text, does not concern the fate of true believers under the two covenants, but 
rather the institutions, the sacraments and, in a word, the genius of the two 
covenants themselves. In the former, no less than in the latter, there was true 
"feeding upon Christ." "Also haben nun die Junger Christi" — he means the 
disciples at the time of the institution of the Supper, i.e., before the glorification 
of the Redeemer's body — "ja, audi alle Vater den Leib und Blut Christi gegessen 
durch den Glauben, sowohl als ihn noch heute alle Glaubigen in des Herrn Nacht- 
mal essen und damit gespeiset und zum ewigen Leben genahrt und gesattigt 
werden." Cf. the treatise, Auslegung des Evang. Luce XIV, Vom Abendmahl des 
Herrn, pp. H hi sqq.: "Dass der Herr Christus auch mit alien Glaubigen von 
Anbeginn der Welt sein Abendmalil hat gehalten. ' ' j 



75 

The solution is attempted from two opposite sides : either faith is 
rationalized so that it is no longer a hyperphysical substance iden- 
tical with the divine essence, or else the conception of salvation is 
modified so that the Old Testament believers were the subjects of 
a generically different redemption during their sojourn on earth. 
Sometimes, indeed, the difficulty is simply evaded, when, e.g., the 
term "faith" is given the further capacity of having no necessary 
temporal or earthly relationship whatsoever. ' ' The nourishing, ' ' 
that is of the faithful before Christ's birth, ' ' is before God beyond 
all time (am aller Zeit) and consists in coelestibus, in the heavenly 
divine essence, and takes place in this world only through a true 
living faith. ' '* Schwenckfeld made much in this connection of such 
formulas as ' ' the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of 
the world" (Rev. xiii. 8). But there is here no real grappling with 
the problem as to how spiritual blessings were mediated in the Old 
economy. It is, moreover, a characteristic of genuine mysticism 
thus to unite God and the soul without any dialectic means. Re- 
gardless of the assertion, therefore, that the faith is the same in 
both dispensations, save that in the former it was secret and con- 
cealed, whereas in the latter it is revealed and open,f it was natural 
for Schwenckfeld to have recourse to the familiar view of his op- 
ponents, that faith in the case of the patriarchs was ' ' the assurance 
of things hoped for" — that is to say a strictly personal act, a volun- 
tary trust in divinely promised blessings. J It could, therefore, 
"make all future things present," just as was the case in the com- 
mon evangelical conception of the term. On the other hand, where 
he adhered strictly to his usual definition of faith, he was bound to 
secure the salvation of the Old Testament saints by the only other 
available expedient — the saving process must be idealized. 
The patriarchs must be represented as waiting in the "vestibule 
of Hades," "as in a prison," § for the infusion of that peculiar 
physico-spiritual principle from the flesh of the risen and deified 
Jesus which, as we have seen, was Schwenckfeld' s normal concep- 
tion of redemption. Either therefore faith becomes for the time 
a strictly personal act, and the whole mystical theory breaks down 
at the point of its contact with the individual moral agent, or else, 
the logic of the system being preserved, the fathers under the old 

* A 655. f A 58b. 

J Cf. Heb. xi. 1. It was precisely this word, virdaraaic, in the definition 
of faith, however, that led Schwenckfeld to conceive of this divine gift as a sub- 
stantive and non-personal principle. 

§ A 61a. 



76 

covenant could not really partake of this hyperphysical and 
unethical salvation. 

With this exposition of Schwenckfeld's view of faith we may 
conclude, having thus traced the entire circle of his specu- 
lations so far as they bear upon his participation in the 
eucharistic controversy of his age.* We have sought to 
interpret the man in the light of the historical situation in 
which he found so much to oppose, and then in the light of 
his own positive contribution to the solution of the problem that 
perplexed him and his contemporaries. It will have appeared, no 
doubt, that, like most of the extremists of that day, he had in the 
facts themselves an ample justification for the exercise of his pro- 
testing spirit; but that he likewise failed to grasp the essence of the 
evangelical reformation in the full depth of its meaning, and there- 
fore failed also to meet the necessities of the case with a superior 
message. His negations were more timely and valuable than his 
affirmations. His diagnosis did him more credit than the treatment 
he prescribed. An ardent champion of the claims of subjective 
piety and the exemplification of the religious graces in daily conduct, 
his practice not seldom revealed, by its felicitous inconsistency with 
his theorizing, the truly Protestant secret of the adjustment be- 
tween faith and works, between the inner activities of the redeemed 
soul and its outward manifestations in the sphere of all communal 
life. A strong and beautiful character, he often succeeded in 
transcending the limitations of his one basal error, the deification of 
the flesh of Christ, and overcame the mystical inclefimteness of his 
speculations; and where he could not do this to the satisfaction of 

* Such minor facts as his peculiar emphasis upon the necessity of strict eccle- 
siastical discipline and sincere piety on the part of the pastors administering the 
Supper may be passed over in silence. They simply afford another illustration 
of what, we hope, has become thoroughly clear from the discussion, that this 
radical reformer was governed on all practical questions b) r such deeply religious 
interests that time and again he laid stress upon considerations which must be 
regarded as logically incompatible with his basal principles. For if God needs no 
means of grace and never confers gifts through creaturely instrumentalities, why 
should such rigorous Donatistic standards be applied to preacher or communicants? 
If faith operates magically, apart from all external and sensible realities, if in 
essence it is an emanation from God, what need is there of regarding either the 
person or the office of the celebrant? Here, too, the devout man was much better 
than liis ill-phrased creed. Equall}' unnecessary is the inquiry concerning the 
effects of the Supper upon unbelievers. Not having the ' 'spiritual discernment of 
faith, ' ' they cannot receive the inner sacramental gift ; they cannot take part in the 
feast without being condemned, even though the act of communing may symbol- 
ize to their own or other minds the significance of the redemptive fact of the 
Saviour's death. Cf. B 7Sa and A 800a. 



77 

his opponents, he yet succeeded by the sheer force of his piety in 
winning to himself a band of devoted followers who might indeed 
in years to come forget some of his theological vagaries, but who 
would ever sacredly cherish the heritage of his prayers and labors in 
behalf of a pure evangelical faith, a truly spiritual Christianity. 

But the ultimate test must take account chiefly of the positive 
rather than of the merely negative contribution which Schwenck- 
feld tried to make toward the solution of the great problem, the 
central question of human existence, the clear positing of which was 
the genesis of the Reformation — that of the soul's relation to God. 
We have seen how largely Schwenckfeld seems to have answered 
the question in the very terms of the Protestant theology, in the very 
language of the Bible. It is hoped, however, that the exhibition of 
the apparent affinities and similarities between Schwenckfeld and his 
evangelical opponents will have served by contrast to sharpen and 
deepen the impression which we believe his works must make upon 
every candid reader — that of the radical and irreconcilable difference 
between his and the traditional conception of the essence of Chris- 
tianity. With the fondness of a genuine mystic to express his 
thoughts and feelings in the hallowed texts of Scripture, he failed 
to see how illogical and impossible it was to make these words bear 
the strain of a system of speculation which might indeed preserve 
the supernatural and Christocentric character of the divine revela- 
tion, but which could not do justice to the fundamentally ethical and 
personal needs of the religious subject. In his polemic against the 
external ecclesiasticism of his age, he was justified in coming for- 
ward as a spokesman for the rights of that inward religious freedom 
which could discard all priestly mediation and emphasize the great 
truth, that the soul can and may enjoy direct communion with the 
Infinite Spirit. But after all allowances are made on the score of 
the harsh angularities of his diverse opponents, his manifold in- 
consistencies in attempting to give his practical reform endeavors a 
speculative basis must likewise be freely acknowledged. That he 
was a mystic was his strength and glory : it was precisely his mysti- 
eism that gave him kinship with the master-minds of his age, above 
all with Luther and Calvin, and enabled him, albeit in a one-sided 
and critisable manner, to express many an evangelical principle 
with an unsurpassed clearness and force. But that in his polemic 
zeal he permitted himself to sacrifice the biblical basis of a genuinely 
Christian mysticism, this was the speculative error that exposed 
his whole system to attack and detracted from its many practical 



78 

excellencies.* For this cardinal theory of the deification of the flesh 
or humanity of Christ, and the necessity of identifying redemption 
with a substantive ingrafting into the soul of the" very essence 
of the divine-human nature of Christ, continually interfered 
with his attempt to vindicate a place for the concrete reali- 
ties of the historical Church. The Bible was, to be sure, 
the book of books; but so sharp was the separation between 
the inner and outer Word, and so one-sided was the empha- 
sis upon the absolute necessity and the all-sufficiency of the 
former to the verge of a possible exclusion of the latter, that in 
spite of his reverence for the Scriptures and his willingness in prac- 
tice to make them the norm of his faith and conduct, he really had 
no logical warrant for his religious devotion to the sacred text : there 
was no adequate nexus between the letter and the spirit, between 
the "historical" and the "spiritual" understanding of the Word. 
Much less can his doctrine of the sacraments commend itself to the 
reason. The inner transaction has no necessary, not even a dialec- 
tic, connection with the outward rite. Yet again we are counseled to 
study the true purpose of the eucharist, and to console ourselves 
with the assurance that "in the use of the sacrament by faith" 
grace is communicated. But when this middle term ' ' faith" is in- 
vestigated, we are once more forced to conclude that however strongly 
Schwenckfeld wished to remain loyal to the confessedly divine insti- 
tutions of the Church, he had no logical ground for regarding the 
sacraments as anything more than symbolic and didactic cere- 
monies. The right use of them, like the right interpretation of the 
Scriptures, demands faith; but faith itself is a gift of God that 

* The application of the term ' ' mystical ' ' to those mysterious elements in 
Christianity which pertain to the direct contact and union between the finite and 
the Infinite Spirit is too common and convenient to be ruthlessly set aside. 
Schwenckfeld, it is true, reared his mysticism upon a faulty doctrinal basis, and 
therefore he also exceeded the bounds of propriety even in his negative attitude 
toward the importance of the historical Church and her means of grace. But 
nothing is gained by simply branding him as a mystic. The best elements of his 
"mysticism" simply reflect the deepest verities of the Christian religion as set 
forth by John and Paul, by Athanasius and Augustine, by Luther and Calvin. 
It would be easy to find in all of these writers precisely the same "mystical 
indefiniteness" that appears in the unfathomable words of the Saviour to his dis- 
ciples: "Abide in me, and I in you," words which have never either by inspired 
or uninspired dialectics been resolved into any simpler or more fully comprehen- 
sible terms. On the general subject of the relation of mysticism to Christianity, 
see Ullmann, Das Wesen des Christentums, 4th ed., 1854, and his article, "Das 
Wesen des Christentums und die Mystik, ' ' in the Theolog. Studien und Kritiken, 
1852, H. 3, pp. 535-614; compare especially the passages cited on page 600 from 
Calvin's Institutes to show the truly mystical vein in this great theologian. 



79 

neither requires nor admits any external mediation — a possession, 
therefore, which can be neither increased nor diminished by using 
or not using the appointed ordinance of worship. The Lord 
is indeed truly present at his table; not in, with, or under the 
elements, nor under their accidents, but to the faith of the worthy 
communicant. The question, however, recurs: How can the 
presence be a real one, in the spiritual sense of the term, when faith 
itself is reduced to a finely corporeal, a hyperphysical yet mechanic- 
ally acting effluence from God through the deified flesh of the 
Redeemer? The benefits to be received in the sacrament may, it 
will be remembered, be presented almost in the language of the 
Reformed theologians. Yet how different in Schwenckfeld is the 
significance of such terms as redemption, regeneration, justifica- 
tion, eating and drinking the flesh and blood of the Son of man! 
With all his insistence upon the true humanity of Christ, he could 
not logically avoid the evil consequences of his theory that redemp- 
tion necessitated a deliverance from the very estate of creaturehood; 
his system has a profoundly anti-natural as well as anti-personal 
tendency, and both his conception of human nature had to be 
modified in order to permit a real incarnation of the Son of God, 
and his notion of personality had to be conformed to the require- 
ments of the strictly magical and unethical operation by which 
God makes the soul a "partaker of the divine nature." His 
fundamental irrationality, that the human nature of Christ became 
essentially divine and yet remained truly human, presented alike to 
reason and to faith an impossible basis upon which to rest. A 
spiritualist dominated by the formulas of the new-found evangelical- 
ism, he had no proper place in his system of speculations for the per- 
son and work of the Holy Spirit. Herein lies the difference between 
him and, so far as the eucharistic controversy is concerned, his 
nearest spiritual kinsmen, the leaders of the Reformed Church. 
Both he and they sought to find in faith the psychological nexus 
between the divine blessing and the sinful soul; but whereas they 
rose to a clear apprehension of the specific function of the Spirit in 
the application of grace, whether through the sacraments or apart 
from all such means, Schwenckfeld was compelled by the logic of his 
primary error to transform those genuinely mystical passages of 
Scripture that teach the gracious but mysterious operations of the 
Spirit directly upon the heart into a highly speculative but 
false mysticism. He labored to have the facades of his structure 
present the familiar characteristics of evangelical orthodoxy, and 
he succeeded in making the edifice serve as a delightful sanctuary 



so 

for many a deeply pious nature; but he could not with all his 
wealth of architectural ornamentation conceal the weakness of 
that imposing pretension that was everywhere made to serve as the 
foundation for the building, the unscriptural and irrational dictum 
that the humanity of Jesus Christ is clivinitized yet remains essen- 
tially the same. 

But if in spite of this basal speculative error Schwenckfeld could 
nevertheless achieve so large a measure of real success, we must be 
prepared to estimate at their true worth those elements of his sys- 
tem of thought and those factors in his personal influence that im- 
pressed so many of his contemporaries with the excellence of his 
life and work. His noble birth, the graces of his person and the 
charm of his manner, his eloquent pleas for religious toleration and 
concord, the warmth and beauty of his piety doubtless served to 
disarm criticism and inspire confidence. Moreover, the almost 
feminine receptivity of his nature had led him to try to approximate, 
as best he could, the distinctive peculiarities of the new evangelical 
message : in many a noble paragraph he shows how deeply he had 
grasped the inmost essence of Protestantism. Indeed, the skill 
and, where skill availed not, the unthinking boldness with which 
he sought to fuse heterogeneous and really incompatible elements 
into a unitary system of theological speculation easily conveyed to 
congenial spirits, to minds of a contemplative rather than a logical 
cast, the impression that his conception of Christianity offered not 
only the practical advantages of the common understanding of the 
rediscovered Gospel but also the superior claims of a deeper, because 
more mystical and less one-sided, interpretation of the facts of our 
religious experience. With all his exegetical shortcomings, more- 
over, he not seldom enjoyed a spiritual vision that revealed with 
the clearness and certainty of intuitive knowledge the manifold 
deficiencies of his opponents. Like all spiritualists he was a stub- 
born protestant against the existing order of things, and therein, 
no doubt, is to be found his noblest service to the cause of truth. 
On the fundamental questions concerning the relation of the Spirit 
to the Word, the bearing of religious belief upon life, and the nature 
of the Church and her sacraments, — the three points that engaged 
the chief attention of all the leading dissenters,* — he uttered judg- 
ments and forged arguments which historical Christianity has ever 
showed its need of having impressed upon its inmost consciousness. 
He was neither a creative religious genius nor even a talented 
ecclesiastical organizer; but his criticism of the theology and the 

* Cf. Hegler, Geist und Schrift bei Sebastian Franck, p. 16. 



81 

religion of his day was a valuable positive contribution to the 
purity and strength of the evangelical movement as a whole. His 
best ideas are those of a genuinely Christian, a specifically Protest- 
ant mysticism, and these truths need emphatic republication in 
every age that is oppressed with an external ecclesiasticism or a life- 
less orthodoxy. His mysticism had its ample justification, as a 
critical and protesting force, both in the facts of the divine revela- 
tion and in the events of contemporary history. If he failed of 
thorough success in his own time, and if the Church since then has 
found little use for some of the fantastic elements of his mysticism, 
it is only because, like the more radical dissenters, though not to the 
same extent, he failed to appreciate the best that his contempo- 
raries had already achieved, and to realize the historic necessities of 
the case with which he was called upon to deal — the necessity of a 
truly rational faith, a genuinely scientific theology, that must serve 
as the guide to ethical conduct; the necessity of the objectively fixed 
Word that must repress the excesses of mere subjectivism; and the 
necessity of the divinely established Church that must after some 
sort have real means of grace. His mysticism, indeed, bravely 
sought to cope with these stern necessities of the situation. By 
the nature of the case, however, only a partial success could be 
achieved. But the measure of this success is a noble historic monu- 
ment to the amount of spiritual truth which, despite the errors with 
which it was combined in his heterogeneous system, exerted so 
beneficent an influence upon his diverse opponents as well as upon 
the generations of his noble followers. 



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